<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/31/trade-trans-pacific-partnership-sherrod-brown-editorials-debates/93084432/" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114);" class="">http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/31/trade-trans-pacific-partnership-sherrod-brown-editorials-debates/93084432/</a><o:p class=""></o:p></div><h1 style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 24pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Sen. Sherrod Brown: Trade deals sell out workers<o:p class=""></o:p></h1><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span class="asset-metabar-author">Sherrod Brown </span><span class="asset-metabar-time">5:49 p.m. EDT October 31, 2016</span><o:p class=""></o:p></div><h2 style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 18pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">It’s no surprise Americans are angry at the prospect of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.<o:p class=""></o:p></h2><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Our trade agreements claim to create a level playing field, but in reality they amount to corporate handouts and worker sellouts.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Proponents of these trade deals like to talk about the gains, but they are less comfortable acknowledging the losses families suffer.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Measuring agreements by only looking at exports, while ignoring a flood of imports, is like reporting only half the score at a baseball game. The Cubs can score two runs, but they still won’t win the World Series if the Indians score five.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">And we can’t look at raw numbers alone. We’ve seen high-paying manufacturing jobs migrate to low-wage countries overseas, and they’ve been replaced — when they’ve been replaced at all — with low-wage service jobs.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">So it’s no surprise Americans are angry at the prospect of another trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, that would be the largest in world history.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">They have every right to be skeptical.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">For example, under TPP, more than half of a car could be made in China and still qualify for the same special benefits as one made in Toledo — that’s a loophole you could drive a Jeep Cherokee through.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">TPP is more of the same: more corporate handouts, allowing corporations to file lawsuits to skirt U.S. law, and more worker sellouts, forcing American workers to compete with countries where workers make paltry minimum wages.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">And given the history of lax enforcement, we have every reason to be skeptical that TPP’s few worker protections will be enforced at all.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Now, the serious problems with TPP do not mean we should turn away from the world and turn our trade policy over to a man who talks about putting America first but manufacturers his suits in Mexico and buys his steel from China.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Trade done right can bring prosperity to workers from Lima, Ohio, all the way to Lima, Peru — but only if we have a truly level playing field.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The stakes are high, and I will continue fighting for trade that strengthens our middle class and grows our economy from the middle out.<o:p class=""></o:p></p><p style="margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><em class="">Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, is a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction on trade matters.</em></p></body></html>