The Obama administration on Thursday will suspend trade privileges for Bangladesh over concerns about safety problems and labor rights violations in that country’s garment industry, according to administration and Congressional officials.

The administration has come under intense pressure to suspend Bangladesh’s trade privileges after a factory building there collapsed in April, killing 1,129 workers, and after a factory fire killed 112 workers last November.

Officials with the United States Trade Representative’s office declined to comment. Administration and Congressional officials said the official announcement would come later on Thursday

Labor unions and Democrats on Capitol Hill have been pressing the Obama administration to take this step. Bangladesh is allowed to export nearly 5,000 products duty-free to the United States, which purchases about 25 percent of the country’s $18 billion in annual apparel exports.

Bangladesh is among more than 125 countries that receives such breaks on United States tariffs under the Generalized System of Preferences, a World Trade Organization program that is intended to promote economic growth around the globe

In recent weeks, officials in the Labor Department have called for revoking Bangladesh’s special trade status, saying the United States needs to take strong action. Labor officials have asserted that the garment industry has been dragging its feet in improving safety and ending violations of workers’ right to form labor unions. At the same time, some State Department officials have pushed against suspending the trade privileges, saying it would damage diplomatic relations and undermine the economy or an already poor country.

At a hearing in March held by the trade representative’s office, a top official in Bangladesh’s Commerce Ministry said, “Compliance with rights, including labor rights, will necessarily be gradual” in poor countries like Bangladesh.

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