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WASHINGTON — The leaders of Congress’s tax-writing committees reached agreement Thursday on legislation to give President Obama “fast track” authority to negotiate an ambitious trade accord with 11 other Pacific nations, beginning what is sure to be one of the toughest legislative battles of his last 19 months in office.The “trade promotion authority” bill — likely to be unveiled Thursday afternoon — would give Congress the power to vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership once it is completed, but would deny lawmakers the chance to amend what would be the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Read more @: Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for Obama on Trade Pact
Well if NAFTA was not enough, get ready for TPP. The TPP has been called "NAFTA on steroids", and is expected to have vast negative consequences for American manufacturing, and the middle and working classes. As a recent study on the implication of TPP stated, "Instead, the TPP looks like it will just constitute one more step toward using commercial agreements to maximize three things: (1) the damage done through global integration to the wages of most American workers; (2) the rents earned by those holding a monopoly on intellectual property claims; and (3) the influence that the preferences of global economic elites have on the policymaking of American trading partners." (http://www.epi.org/publication/tpp-unlikely-to-be-good-deal-for-american-workers/). Now we are just one step closer for this deal to become official trade policy :censored