Pacific pact would kill U.S. jobs: Opposing view
Even if TPP does not kill your job, it will undermine Americans’ wages by pitting us in competition against Vietnamese workers making less than 60 cents an hour. The wages of all workers with similar skill levels decline when Americans losing better-paying manufacturing jobs join the glut of workers competing for non-offshorable jobs.
TPP also would gut Buy American, so our tax dollars would also be offshored rather than reinvested to create jobs here. And the administration refused to include rules against currency cheating, even though several TPP countries are notorious for this practice that destroys U.S. businesses and jobs.
Consider the 2012 South Korea agreement used as the TPP template. The U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea almost doubled in the pact’s first three years. This equates to more than 90,000 American jobs lost, according to the ratio the administration used to promise job gains from the deal.
Indeed, job-killing trade deficits have grown more than 425% with countries we have trade agreements with, but declined 11% with those we don’t.
To distract from TPP’s threat to our jobs and wages, the administration now says the deal would somehow counter China’s rising power. Except President Obama recently revealed discussions with China about joining TPP.