Scott Powers
International trade deals have been killing America’s economy and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership would be the end of the middle class, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson declared in a speech at Walt Disney World.
Speaking before more than 2,000 postal workers gathered at a convention rally of the American Postal Workers Union, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Orlando portrayed the country’s trade deficit as a direct result of past trade deals — and said the worst is yet to come.
“We are on the road to an America that consists of nothing but cheap labor and debt slavery,” Grayson said. “That’s the end game here. And in fact the TPP greases the skids for that. I’m tell you right now if this goes through, it’s curtains for the middle class of America. We will never, ever, ever be able to recover from this.”
Grayson has long been one of Congress’ biggest critics of the TPP and he was in front of a friendly crowd, as the APWU also has opposed it. In fact, the rally was themed to oppose the TPP. The APWU has 200,000 members.
Grayson is in an uphill battle for the Aug. 30 Democratic U.S. Senate primary, behind in the polls to U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Jupiter, with Miami lawyer Pam Keith lately grabbing some attention. The winner likely would face incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, though he has a primary to win first.
Murphy went from expressing disappointment in the trade deal’s language to opposition. Keith has moved from uncertain to opposed. Rubio once was a strong supporter of the TPP but more recently has hedged that support, awaiting more reports.
Grayson left little doubt with the postal workers. His position is that since the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1994, the American trade deficit has ballooned to record levels almost every year and now stands at $500 billion, and that’s driving manufacturing and jobs overseas.
He also stated that America now owes $11 trillion of assets to foreigners, and it leads to increasing debt payments, now up to $500 billion a year.
He also was critical of language that allows foreign corporations to sue the United States or any of its governments before the World Bank.
“We have to go back to a time when we literally pay our bills. We have to go back to a time when we don’t go into hock deeper and deeper to unspoken, soulless, anonymous, foreign entities,” Grayson concluded. “If we don’t do that, the life we love, the life we all cherish, the American middle class where people have a job, where they have a home, where they have health coverage, where they have small amounts of money set aside for a pension at least, where they can afford to pay for their children’s education if their children want to go to college, that will be over. That’s how important this is.
“Fight together with the union in order to try to prevent this,” he urged.
