This week, it appears that President Obama got the Senate to give him "fast-track" authority for the Transpacific Partnership and the House isn't far behind.
For months, the Obama administration and supporters of "Obamatrade" have been saying that the TPP is about supporting free trade with Pacific Rim countries. But the president last week hinted at the real reason why the administration is putting so much effort into passing this trade deal.
The TPP does not include China, and Obama is apparently hoping that the trade deal will help block China from becoming the world's economic leader. But as Elizabeth Warren has pointed out, "free-trade" deals historically have never helped American workers or supported American manufacturing.
And the TPP won't change the fact that China is, today, central to the political economy of the Pacific region.
In fact, China is already the largest trade partner with Japan, Singapore and Australia - three key countries involved in the TPP. China's also the number one trade partner with South Korea and India , two economic powerhouses in the region that are not taking part in the TPP.
And while supporters of the TPP point to China as our biggest economic competitor, what little we know about the TPP suggests that it would promote the exact policies that have destroyed the American middle class and have allowed China to become the world's largest manufacturer.
When Barack Obama took office, America was in the midst of the largest economic recession since the Great Depression, and the president's stimulus package and his tax cuts for the middle class , the largest middle-class tax cut in the history of America, helped slow the recession .
Working class Americans had more disposable income to buy goods, but the only TVs, computers and other goods that we could buy were made abroad.
Thus, the Obama stimulus created manufacturing jobs, but most of them were in China and America's other "free-trade" partners , countries where they still manufacture things. That's why more American spending only created a few American jobs after the stimulus , as soon as US consumers bought foreign-made products, those stimulus dollars went offshore.
George Washington faced the same problem looking for an American-made suit to wear for his inauguration. Following the American Revolution, America had no manufacturing base as a result of Britain's colonialist economic policy.
Britain relied on its colonies for raw materials, which would then be shipped to England and manufactured to be sold across the world. So when America gained independence we were mainly a farming economy , but the Founders knew that it was vital to build American manufacturing at home if we were to become a strong nation.
