Mr. Abell handles international sales for Oregon Berry Packing, Inc. in Hillsboro, Oregon.  We do not know just when Mr. Abell made this comment, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce included it in a series of statements posted on the Chamber website earlier today.  So we are going with date of March 18. 

Oregon Berry Packing's story is interesting.  Their products are Oregon grown blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries.  They sell them all over the world.  Having good products, however, isn't enough.  You also need to get past the national trade barriers that keep U.S. products out of a lot of markets.   Oregon blueberries used to face a prohibitively high, 45 percent, tariff in South Korea.  But the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is changing that.  That 45 percent tariff is coming down, and Korea is now the second largest export market for Oregon Berry Packing, Inc.

The same U.S. Chamber of Commerce post with Mr. Abell's remarks also highlighted the strong economic stake that other small business have in a Trade Promotion Authority bill reaching the President's desk sooner rather than later.  Among the companies they highlighted were:

Indeed, the Chamber's TPA testimonials today began with a quote from Cynthia Parker of Process Equipment Inc., who said, "For us TPA means not only keeping our jobs, but paying bills and buying groceries."

Occasionally the line between Context and Comment in these entries gets blurred.  Still, for the most part, the Context sections are factual, at least to the extent that they are factual reports of what someone else has said, often with a note or two of background.  The Comment sections, on the other hand, are our own impressions either of the featured quote or quotes or of the issue they address.

It seems doubtful to us that getting a TPA bill through Congress would be as difficult as it is proving to be if Labor were the only significant opposition.  But it is not.  There is an array of NGO opponents lined up against it.  Further our guess is that many of the members of those groups have but the vaguest knowledge of what is at stake.  So the question arises, is America creating - or has it created - a politics where sentiment trumps interest?  If so, there is a lot more to worry about than just TPA, though TPA is a lot.