The U.S. House has again passed Trade Promotion Authority. House lawmakers approved TPA Thursday as a standalone bill. It was the second time in a week that the House passed TPA. A week ago the chamber voted to approve TPA as part of a package of trade measures, but it defeated a Trade Adjustment Assistance bill, thus preventing TPA from moving forward. This time, TPA and TAA were considered as stand-alone bills. While the Senate passed a TPA-TAA package May 23rd, it too must now take up the separate bills. The Senate is expected to take up the issue this week.

The Head of Bayer AG’s CropScience unit says a potential merger of Monsanto and Syngenta would prompt an industry review. Liam Condon said “there’s only six research and development based players in this industry so if the two biggest were to go together, inevitably it would force others to review their strategies.” He declined to comment on what Bayer would do if the two rivals combined. Bayer would be a candidate to buy Syngenta’s seed business, which Monsanto would need to sell for antitrust reasons. Monsanto already pitched the idea to Bayer last year.

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