Obama Rejects Notion That Trade Deal Is In Danger

[pampango]

10. "In any free trade agreement the richer country always loses out."

Don't tell that to Canada and European countries. They don't lose out but then they have progressive taxes, strong unions and effective safety nets.

Workers on countries with those things do fine - free trade or no free trade. Workers on countries without those things - like the US - do terribly with or without free trade.

The enemy of American workers is not the poor African or Asian, it is our fellow Americans - our oligarchs - who have perverted our tax system, weakened our unions and shredded our safety net. We can wall off every poor foreigner and it won't help. We've tried it in the past. It did not work then because taxes were low and regressive, unions were weak and there were no safety nets to speak of.