Rep. Kaptur Blasts House Leaders For Job-Outsourcing Pacific Trade Deal

Press Release

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) spoke out against the job killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) yesterday after a vote in the House of Representatives to approve "fast track" Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). Under TPA, Congress would have no opportunity to amend any proposed trade deal, would not be allowed to hold hearings with trade experts, and would be limited to 60 days to vote up or down on massive complex agreements that, at least in the case of the TPP, are approaching 1,000 pages of highly technical language.

"America's middle class is shrinking," said Rep. Kaptur. "Wages are flat or falling for working families, and imports into our country dwarf the exports going out. We have already given away one fifth of our economic productivity to bad trade deals. But instead of pushing through trade policies that could turn the tide for the 99 percent, the House voted to sell out working families and American industries that have been the backbone of the U.S. economy for decades."

The U.S. trade deficit for 2014 was $508 billion dollars ($508,324,000,000). As of this April, the deficit for 2015 had already reached $171 billion dollars ($171,139,000,000). Since 1970, our cumulative U.S. trade deficit is over $10 trillion ($10,079,379,000,000). According to Robert E. Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, "A billion dollars invested in manufacturing here in the United States could support 5,000 jobs, but a billion dollars of increased trade in the form of imported goods from Asia or anywhere else would kill jobs here."

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