Why everyone is fighting so hard over the Pacific Rim trade deal

The long, acrimonious legislative battle that gave President Barack Obama the power needed to complete trade agreements reflects both the steady march of globalization and also the nation’s deep ambivalence about the consequences of America’s widening economic engagement with the world.

With Wednesday’s 60-38 Senate vote to pass legislation on trade-promotion authority, or fast track, the Obama administration can turn to finishing negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a deal that would join the markets of 12 Pacific Rim nations accounting for 40 percent of the global economy.

Tough issues involving sensitive farm and dairy products have to be resolved, and negotiators also must finalize rules and standards on intellectual property, labor, environment and other areas related to trade and investment. Organized labor and other groups that fought against fast track vowed not to let up in their campaign to block what they see as another trade deal that will destroy American jobs and depress wages.

And it will likely be year-end at the earliest before Congress has a final say on the accord. Lawmakers will not be allowed to amend the pact and it’s by no means certain they will approve it.

History is on Obama’s side: Every U.S. trade agreement presented to Congress by a president after winning fast track has eventually passed. In that sense, the Pacific deal, while the biggest yet attempted, is only the latest in a decades-long revolution set off by sweeping changes in technology, communications and transportation as well as economic policy all around the world — changes that seem to go well beyond the power of any single government, political party or interest group to control.

Certainly the benefits of globalization are clear: “We have $10 T-shirts, $12,000 basic cars and $500 computers,” said Robert Shapiro, a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, who pushed through the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. “None of that would have been possible without globalization.”

But the costs are also clear: Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and other jobs have moved overseas to countries where workers are paid less, have fewer benefits and enjoy a lower standard of living than the American workers who once held those jobs.

Nor have the costs been confined to industrial workers. Many white-collar jobs in law, medicine and accounting, to name a few, also are moving overseas as global education rates improve and the leveling influence of technology intensifies.

There’s evidence, for example, that China’s rise in the world trading system over the last two decades has had a significant effect on American jobs. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions estimate that soaring import competition from China has resulted in a net loss of more than 2 million domestic jobs from 1999 to 2011. Other economists say offshoring, or the moving of U.S. factories and jobs to other countries, also has contributed to broader wage declines for American workers.

Lingering frustration from the Great Recession, which has left many U.S. workers struggling, has raised those stakes even higher, spurring Democratic lawmakers to challenge their party’s own president over the trade deal.