French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde has been chosen to lead the International Monetary Fund . She will become the first female managing director of the global lending organization.

Lagarde's selection became all but assured when the Obama administration endorsed her earlier Tuesday. Hours later, the IMF's 24-member board voted to appoint her to the position. She had also won support from Europe, China and Russia.

I am deeply honored by the trust placed in me,'' Lagarde said in a statement after the vote. ``I would like to thank the fund's global membership warmly for the broad-based support I have received.''

Lagarde will face immediate challenges once she begins a five-year term next week.

She'll have to prod fellow European officials to take painful steps to prevent a default by Greece. She'll face pressure from emerging nations that want a greater voice at the IMF. And she'll be looked upon to restore the organization's reputation, which was tarred by a scandal involving the man she replaced.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned last month after being charged with sexually assaulting a New York City hotel housekeeper. He has denied the charges.

She was chosen by consensus, the IMF said in a statement. Mexico's Agustin Carstens challenged her, but his candidacy never caught fire.

Lagarde's exceptional talent and broad experience will provide invaluable leadership ... at a critical time for the global economy,'' U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said.

Lagarde, 55, will be the first person to lead the IMF who isn't an economist. She led the Chicago-based law firm Baker & McKenzie before entering French politics in 2005. She speaks impeccable English and spent much of her career in the United States.

As one of the longest-serving ministers under French President Nicolas Sarkozy, she made the country's labor market rules more flexible. Forbes has listed her among the world's most powerful women.

Her appointment puts two women in prominent leadership roles at the organization. In April, Nemat Shafik, an Egyptian economist and former World Bank official, was appointed a top deputy at the fund. Shafik said last month the IMF is boosting its efforts to recruit women. The fund wants 25 percent to 30 percent of its management positions to be held by women by 2014, Shafik said.

In addition to the most recent charges, Strauss-Kahn was reprimanded in 2008 for having a brief affair with a subordinate, though he faced no disciplinary action.

Lagarde told the IMF's board last week that the managing director ``has to lead by example.'' She promised to ``restore staff pride in working at the IMF'' as part of a "healing process.''

Lagarde will be expected to help stabilize Europe's debt crisis.

That's likely one reason why even some developing countries, such as China, supported her candidacy, Lombardi said. China owns billions of dollars in euro-dominated bonds and has little interest in seeing the European debt crisis worsen.

The Senate will officially take up three trade deals and a scaled-back version of a jobs retraining program for laid-off workers on Thursday.

Senate negotiators will have to start pounding out the details of the trade deals, as well as

funding for the jobs retraining program -- whose funding ran dry in February.

"This was truly a bipartisan negotiation on all sides ... we think this is a strong package that reflected the different priorities," said one senior administration official on a call with reporters Tuesday.

But final passage on all the measures is not a done deal. Republican support depends on how closely the trade deals and jobs retraining program are linked together.

Republicans want to vote on the trade pacts, and have agreed to consider the new compromise that would extend the jobs retraining program, according to congressional aides. But they refuse to have the issues stuck together on the same bill, in a way that would prevent them from making changes to the jobs retraining program.

"I would strongly urge the Administration to re-think this action, and urge them to send up all three pending trade agreements without delay -- and without extraneous poison pills included," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a statement Tuesday.

If Congress were to pass the trade pacts without the jobs retraining program, President Obama would face a tough choice as he had previously said he couldn't have one without the other.

At issue is the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which got a big funding boost with the 2009 economic Recovery Act.

The program gives unemployed workers financial help and job training when employers move jobs overseas. White House officials had previously said that more than 435,000 workers would be eligible for the program if it were reinstated. But Republicans have said they are concerned about funding such stimulus programs, because of the big deficits the nation faces.

A White House official outlined a compromise made on the program, saying it would be scaled back. He added that it wouldn't add to the deficit, thanks to cuts in unemployment insurance; and due to a new proposal that would penalize tax preparers who have "bad records," claiming tax credits for those who don't qualify.

But the White House couldn't give a final tab on Tuesday for the scaled back Trade Adjustment Assistance program.

An additional roadblock is that even though House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. David Camp was involved in the compromise, it's unclear whether even a scaled-back version could pass the GOP-controlled House

"We're pleased the President may finally send us the three job-creating trade agreements we've requested, but we have long said that TAA -- even this scaled-back version -- should be dealt with separately from the trade agreements," said Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

The one thing many congressional Republicans and Democrats can agree on is wanting to pass the trade deals to help boost the U.S. economy, particularly since some say the treaties could add as many as 250,000 jobs.

Despite Obama's effort to tie the trade pacts to something the unions want, the AFL-CIO and other labor groups continue to oppose the treaties -- which they say don't do enough to protect workers' rights.

But business groups from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Business Roundtable applauded the move forward.

"With our economic recovery stalling, the time is now for Congress to act on these deals," said Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber. "We simply cannot afford to put American jobs at risk any longer."