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Auckland trade ministers signed the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement into law on Thursday, causing massive popular protests against the prohibitive and corporate-sponsored trade agreement.

The New Zealand Herald reported that “all streets around Sky City Convention Center and motorway on and off ramps leading to the central business district were blocked by protesters.

Amid the waves of protestors, trade ministers gathered inside the Sky City Convention Center at a long table highlighted by the TPP logo.

The long and technical, 6,000 page document was initially released by New Zealand, and contains the culmination of deals worked out over five years among the twelve prospective signees: New Zealand, and includes deals worked out over five years by the TPP members — Canada, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

Fears surrounding the deal include provisions like the weakening of worker protections in Vietnam, corporate lobbyist finalities and little input from the public. New Zealanders worry that the deal will compromise the sovereignty of their state.

Among the high profile critics of the deal are linguist and MIT professor Noam Chomsky, who told HuffPost Live the idea that the Trans-Pacific Partnership promotes “free trade” or even a streamlining that would be beneficial to workers is a farce. The TPP is “designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity,” Chomsky said.

With an emphasis on deregulation of global markets, the agreement pits American workers against those in Malaysia for example, where the minimum wages are irreconcilably different. This in turn will cause further outsourcing from the corporate level and encourage unfair labor practices while maximizing profits.

In the 4 February New Hampshire Democratic primary debate, Presidential candidate and Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders rebuked opponent Hillary Clinton’s fervent support for past harmful free trade deals like NAFTA and her ambivalence on the TPP.

Sanders said: “T]he TPP is, it’s to say to American workers, hey, you are now competing against people in Vietnam who make 56 cents an hour minimum wage.”

New Zealand protestors, numbering in the thousands outside the convention center as the signing took place, sought to disrupt the proceedings of a deal unfair to workers.

According to the New Zealand Herald, a protest group called Real Choice planned the non-violent action as well as the blockade of primary and secondary streets leading to the center. Their goal was a “TPP-free zone” in order to shut down the signing process.

Real Choice spokesperson Julia Espinoza explained the group’s intentions.

"Petitions, marches and lobbying have their place; but now the TPP is being signed on our doorstep, and we feel it is time to try to shut it down and create a TPP-free zone."

Another protestor named Maraea Clark said the trade deal was an explicit means of controlling people.

"It's not a better life for the people; it's a better life for the corporations who are wanting to take over."

The U.S. and Canada have not yet signed the deal, but both president Obama and prime minister Justin Trudeau have indicated that they intend to ratify the agreement.