Thursday, September 19, 2013

TPP + China = even more reason to worry

Just when you think the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) can’t get any worse, it does. Now China is making rumblings that it wants to participate in the TPP. You know, the country that put the “sweat” in sweatshops!

America has seen what China can do to U.S. jobs, and it’s not good. This nation lost 2.7 million jobs to the Chinese during the first 10 years after China was accepted into the World Trade Organization, but that is only the beginning if the world’s most populated nation is allowed to join the current 12-country Pacific Rim trade pact.
And did we mention that the U.S. trade deficit with China topped $30 billion for the first time in July? Good times!

While trade negotiators are in the nation’s capital to try and work out unresolved portions of the TPP, those who support workers and their allies are taking to the street tomorrow to say the public deserves to be heard on this trade agreement. There should be no quick up-or-down vote in Congress on something so important.
Let's make them remember that when the U.S. negotiates a trade agreement, every provision should benefit working families, not big corporations. America doesn't need anymore "free" trade deals, it needs fair trade deals.