NAFTA passed on Nov. 20, 1993, on the promise of jobs. Oddly enough . . .

[zipplewrath]

35. No it's not

Yes, NAFTA is a general punching bag for much of what has happened in a larger sense to the US economy. But technological advancement has very little to do with it. The American worker is vastly more productive today than prior to NAFTA and yet their wages have not grown proportionally.

There is very little the TPP can do to achieve its goals without contributing to the larger problem of the race to the bottom on wages. There are virtually no "protections" for American workers in this bill (at least the public parts). There are protections for foreign workers (which is why they say it raises working standards) but Warren's concern is that we won't particularly enforce those because we aren't enforcing protections that already exist in current trade agreements. So we'll lower wages here, change nothing about working standards here, and we agree to raise them elsewhere, but never take action to actually accomplish that.

Now there's one heck of an agreement.