NAFTA Failures Fuel Congressional TPP Opposition, Says Public Citizen Report

The Obama Administration’s failure to fix endemic problems in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), including significant domestic job loss, skyrocketing income inequality, agricultural instability and health and environment damage, is fueling congressional opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), said Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch in a report released on Feb. 13. “The TPP represents a stunning flip-flop that threatens to replicate the very NAFTA-style damage that Obama criticized on the campaign trail,” said the report. “But the administration and corporate proponents of the TPP will have difficulty getting the controversial deal through Congress. Twenty years of NAFTA’s damage has contributed to a groundswell of TPP opposition among the U.S. public and policymakers.”