While ignoring the desperate plight of 1.3 million Americans who recently lost unemployment benefits, Congress today introduced a Fast Track bill that would subject the secretly-negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement to a straight up or down vote by Congress.
“The IAM strongly opposes the bill introduced today by Senators Baucus and Hatch and Representative Camp regarding Fast Track Authority,” said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. “This legislation does not represent the new, transparent trade policy that our economy desperately needs and that U.S. workers deserve. It would make it even easier to obtain passage of the soon to be finalized Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). If TPP is finalized and implemented, it would wreak havoc on U.S. manufacturing workers as thousands of more jobs will be outsourced to countries that do not respect human rights.”
Covering twelve Pacific Rim countries, the TPP is largest free trade agreement ever negotiated and includes notorious human rights violators Vietnam and Brunei, as well as NAFTA countries Mexico and Canada.
Historically, the Fast Track process has been used for railroading through Congress the most egregious trade agreements like NAFTA. TPP fits the same mold of those corporate-driven agreements.
Click here to read the original article at GoIAM.org.