Is it really China or us?
If we don’t set the rules, China will, President Obama warned in his State of the Union Address, which was otherwise mostly a welcome call to action against economic inequality. President Obama stressed that Trade Promotion Authority, or Fast Track, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were about China or us. This week U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman flew to Dallas to attend a constituent meeting with Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) and said the same thing.
But is this an economic argument or an argument from the National Security Council and the State Department? Are U.S. working women and men again being called out to sacrifice, despite 30 years of no wage increases and millions of lost jobs, our cities hollowed out by the flight of once-good-paying manufacturing jobs to countries with pay that’s 90 percent lower, no rights for workers or environmental regulation? Or do the president and the USTR really believe they are making an economic argument — that U.S. workers will be better served competing with Vietnam’s 75-cents-an-hour average pay?
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