Key committees in the both the Senate and the House of Representatives will consider draft bills to implement the three agreements, each of which were originally negotiated and signed more than four years ago.
The pacts together are expected to boost U.S. exports by about $13 billion, which the Obama administration says will help to create or support tens of thousands of American jobs.
A coalition of U.S. farm and business groups renewed their call for swift approval of the deals.
"For far too long, the United States has sat on the sidelines while other nations have clinched their own trade deals with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama, threatening to put American workers and businesses large and small at a competitive disadvantage," the groups said.
Critics say the pacts will hurt U.S. employment by boosting imports and creating incentives for American companies to move some operations to the three trade partners.
Richard Trumka, president of the 12.2 million-member AFL-CIO labor federation, called the trade deals "the wrong medicine at the wrong time for an ailing economy."
Lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee will vote on a series of non-binding amendments that the White House can choose to include or not in the final bills it sends to Congress for a vote.
That is a traditional first step in congressional consideration of trade agreements, which under previously agreed rules cannot be amended once the White House formally submits them to Congress for approval.
The two panels are working from different versions of the Korea bill, reflecting a fight between Republicans and Democrats over the future of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a five-decade-old program that provides retraining and income assistance for workers displaced by trade.
Democrats, with strong backing from the White House, have insisted on renewal of the program in conjunction with the three trade deals. However, many Republicans view the program's approximately $1 billion annual pricetag as costly and ineffective. They also question why workers who lose their job because of trade deserve more benefits than other unemployed workers.
The Korea bill in the Democratic-controlled Senate Finance Committee contains TAA, while the version before the Republican-controlled House Ways and Means Committee does not.
The White House has indicated the final Korea bill it sends to Congress will contain TAA.
The Colombia bill, in both the House and the Senate, would also renew two longtime U.S. trade preference programs for developing countries -- the Generalized System of Preferences and the Andean Trade Preferences Act. Both recently expired. (Reuters)
