Our trade agreements claim to create a level playing field, but in reality they amount to corporate handouts and worker sellouts. Proponents of these trade deals like to talk about the gains, but they are less comfortable acknowledging the losses families suffer.
Measuring agreements by only looking at exports, while ignoring a flood of imports, is like reporting only half the score at a baseball game. The Cubs can score two runs, but they still won’t win the World Series if the Indians score five.
And we can’t look at raw numbers alone. We’ve seen high-paying manufacturing jobs migrate to low-wage countries overseas, and they’ve been replaced – when they’ve been replaced at all – with low-wage service jobs. So it’s no surprise Americans are angry at the prospect of another trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, that would be the largest in world history. They have every right to be skeptical. For example, under TPP, more than half of a car could be made in China and still qualify for the same special benefits as one made in Toledo – that’s a loophole you could drive a Jeep Cherokee through. TPP is more of the same: more corporate handouts, allowing corporations to file lawsuits to skirt U.S. law, and more worker sellouts, forcing American workers to compete with countries where workers make paltry minimum wages. And given the history of lax enforcement, we have every reason to be skeptical that TPP’s few worker protections will be enforced at all. Now, the serious problems with TPP do not mean we should turn away from the world and turn our trade policy over to a man who talks about putting America first but manufacturers his suits in Mexico and buys his steel from China. Trade done right can bring prosperity to workers from Lima, Ohio, all the way to Lima, Peru – but only if we have a truly level playing field. The stakes are high, and I will continue fighting for trade that strengthens our middle class and grows our economy from the middle out.