During my 24 years in Congress, I have led the fight against disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA, CAFTA, and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. These agreements have two things in common. One, they have destroyed millions of good middle-class jobs for Americans. And two, they were both passed under what is called “fast-track authority.”

Fast-track authority removes the ability for Congress to make changes to trade agreements. It puts the negotiation of trade agreements in the hands of secretive trade officials, who do not share much information with Congress or the public about what they are negotiating. Even worse, the United States Trade Representative has afforded more than 400 representatives of special interests and corporations the right to confidential information about these agreements. When agreements are negotiated in secret and using these fast-track procedures, it’s no wonder they are good for big corporations, and bad for ordinary Americans.



Today, the United States Trade Representative is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This agreement would be the largest free trade agreement in history. Its member states account for 40 percent of the world’s GDP. And there are serious problems with this agreement. One of the new entrants is Vietnam, a country which has a minimum wage of 56 cents an hour. Another is Malaysia, which uses modern-day slave laborers in its electronics industry.

The simple reality is – and one doesn't have to be a PhD in economics to figure this out – that if a company has the option of hiring somebody in a low-wage country at 56 cents an hour and they don't have to deal with unions or with environmental standards, why would they not go to those countries? The answer is they would go. The answer is they have gone. Our trade policies have caused a global race to the bottom, and have led to a disappearing middle class and skyrocketing poverty and inequality.

Over the past 30 years, we have been told by the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now the current White House that unfettered free trade will increase jobs in America. For example, the Clinton Administration estimated that NAFTA would create 200,000 American jobs over a two year period and 1 million jobs over five years. Instead, since it was signed, NAFTA has cost us a million jobs. In 1993, the year before NAFTA was implemented, the United States actually had a trade surplus with Mexico of more than $1.6 billion a year. Last year, our trade deficit with Mexico was $54 billion.

