Fast track (trade)

The fast track authority for brokering trade agreements was the authority of the President of the United States to negotiate international agreements in an expedited manner and with limited congressional oversight. Renamed the trade promotion authority (TPA) in 2002, the TPA was an impermanent power granted by Congress to the President. It remained in effect from 1975 to 1994, pursuant to the Trade Act of 1974 and from 2002 to 2007 pursuant to the Trade Act of 2002. Although it technically expired in July 2007, it remained in effect for agreements that were already under negotiation until their passage in 2011. In June 2015, a third renewal passed Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama, which expired in 2021 and was not renewed.

Under the TPA, the President's trade negotiations followed guidelines and negotiating objectives set by Congress. If the negotiations followed the negotiating objectives, the implementing bill could pass Congress on majority votes instead of the three-fifths threshold normally needed in the Senate to conclude debate on a bill or the two-thirds threshold for the Senate to ratify a treaty. Congress could not amend or filibuster the implementing bill. The TPA was the mechanism used by the U.S. government to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement as well as other congressional-executive agreements. It was praised for allowing the government to negotiate trade deals which would otherwise have been impossible to complete. However, it was also criticized for usurping congressional powers and for lacking transparency.