“Union carpenters gather for a rally in downtown Portland on the evening of March 9,
2015, to protest a proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. Photo by Jeff Mapes/Staff
Trans-Pacific Partnership:
The editorial board thinks “it’s tricky to estimate how many jobs are directly tied to trade, much less how many would be created if the (Trans-Pacific Partnership) is signed.” Tricky, indeed, when you only account for part of the jobs equation. Missing from this equation is how many jobs will be destroyed as a result of this agreement.
The U.S.-South Korea trade agreement was the last to go into effect. President Obama said that because of increased export opportunities, 70,000 new jobs would be created and that our trade balance with South Korea would improve. Yet since then, our trade deficit with South Korea has grown, meaning that those new jobs never materialized. In fact, during the agreement’s first three years, the trade deficit increased by $11.8 billion, meaning the loss of 75,000 good-paying American jobs.
So it is important to ask the right questions. Since the agreement will encourage off-shoring of investments and jobs and will do nothing to stop currency manipulation, the likelihood of a favorable result from the TPP corporate trade agreement is slim. The TPP should be rejected.
David Delk Northeast Portland
A note from Jill Stein:
The Obama administration – and bipartisan supporters – are pushing a secret corporate trade deal, the Trans Pacific Partnership, (TPP), that would give corporations more power than nations.
The TPP would empower a secret global court consisting of three judges appointed by the World Bank and allow foreign corporations to overrule U.S. laws. This is direct assault on our Constitution and democracy.
Oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
Will you sign? http://www.jill2016.com/flushthetpp
“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”
― Langston Hughes
https://thepeaceresource.wordpress.com/2015/01/24/dreams-dreamers-and-dreaming/