One of the key reasons why the middle class in America continues to decline and
the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider is because of
disastrous trade agreements which have sent millions of decent-paying jobs to
China and other low-wage countries,” Bernie said.
Bernie’s leading role
in opposing the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership follows a long record of
opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement, Permanent Normal Trade
Relations with China and other job-killing trade deals. Partly because of those
and other agreements, nearly 60,000 factories in this country have been
shuttered since 2001 and more than 4.7 million manufacturing jobs have
vanished.
Proponents claimed that NAFTA would create 200,000 American
jobs. Instead, the 1994 deal led to the loss of some 1 million jobs in the
United States. The trade agreement with China six years later was ballyhooed by
corporate backers as way to create hundreds of thousands of American jobs.
Instead, it led to the loss of 3.2 million U.S. jobs.
Americans should
not be forced to compete against desperately poor workers throughout the world.
In Vietnam, for example, workers are paid as little as 56 cents an hour. “Trade
agreements should benefit working people, not just CEOs of large corporations,”
Bernie added.
As the largest economy in the world, Americans should
expect corporations to invest in the United States and make products in America.
“Corporate America must begin investing in the United States and not just
low-wage countries,” Bernie said.
The senator also expressed concern
about other aspects of the proposed Pacific Rim trade deal. While disturbing
details of the agreement have been leaked, Bernie criticized the secrecy
surrounding the negotiations. “It is absurd that a trade agreement of such
enormous consequence has had so little transparency.” He also warned that the
agreement could undermine U.S. sovereignty by giving foreign corporations the
right to challenge laws in international courts. “It is beyond belief that this
agreement would let corporations sue over laws to protect public health and the
environment.”
Bernie and others participated in the rally outside the
office of U.S. Trade Representative Michael B. Froman only four days after
proponents of the trade agreement introduced legislation that would make it
easier to rush the measure through Congress. |
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