No April Fools. Administration Continues To Duck Essential Question: Is Fast Tracking TPP Good For American Jobs?

Press Release

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), along with eight other Members of Congress, released the following statement today in response to the Administration's explanation of how they evaluate the impact of trade deals on American jobs. The letter from United States Trade Representative Michael Froman and Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker verifies that the Administration has been including goods produced in foreign countries as American exports when reporting on the outcomes of past U.S. trade agreements during its push for Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority. Joining DeLauro in issuing today's statement were Representatives Peter DeFazio, Marcy Kaptur and Barbara Lee.

"The U.S. should use free trade agreements to boost American jobs. Goods produced abroad are not made in America, do not create American jobs and should not be counted as American exports. To claim that, for example, a product made in China that travels through the U.S. on its way to Canada is an American export is ludicrous. Decades ago, many of these products were made in America. But trade policies that benefit large multinational corporations at the expense of working families have sent many of these jobs offshore. Fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would only intensify the offshoring of U.S. jobs and push down our wages by putting America in competition with Vietnam, where workers make less than 60 cents an hour.

"No one contests what Ambassador Froman and Secretary Pritzker note about including re-exports in reports on the U.S. global trade balance. When considering the U.S. trade balance as a whole, re-exports are washed out. But serious distortions arise in our trade balances with specific countries when the Administration counts foreign-made goods as U.S. exports. Congress needs accurate data on the past agreements that on which the TPP is based.

"The only parties that find the Administration's data useful in the current debate are the multinational corporations that will use the TPP to accelerate the offshoring of American jobs and drive an international race to the bottom in jobs and wages. They do not care where the products are made. But for the people we represent, nothing could be more important. The past is prologue and if we do not have an honest assessment of the devastating impact our previous trade agreements have had on America's domestic manufacturing base, we cannot evaluate the TPP on its merits."

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