Unions intensifying attacks on new emerging free-trade pact
Source: AP-Excite
By TOM RAUM
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just over two decades after lobbying unsuccessfully against the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. labor unions are again voicing strong reservations to a proposed major trade-liberalization deal.
At issue now is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a measure expected to call for lowering or eliminating most trade barriers among the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations. The pact is still being hammered out in closed-door negotiations.
Union leaders and other critics say that the proposed pact would prompt U.S. companies to funnel manufacturing jobs to lower-wage countries. Environmental and human rights groups also are voicing strong opposition.
It's a familiar theme. After all, former presidential candidate Ross Perot warned NAFTA would create "a giant sucking sound" as jobs left the United States for Mexico.
FULL story at link.
FILE - In this Nov. 10, 2014 file photo, President Barack Obama, seated next to Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, speaks during a meeting with leaders of the Trans-Pacific Partnership countries on the sidelines of the APEC summit, in Beijing. Just over two decades after lobbying unsuccessfully against the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. labor unions are again voicing strong reservations to a proposed major trade-liberalization deal. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
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