Title
Opposing the extension of poor trade policies.
Body
WHEREAS the U.S. economy is still struggling to recover from the Great Recession;
WHEREAS millions of America's workers are unemployed and underemployed, wages and consumer demand are far below where they should be, and inequality is at historic highs;
WHEREAS employment in manufacturing dropped by more than 4 million from 2000 to 2014;
WHEREAS the growing trade deficits exacerbated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) displaced nearly 700,000 jobs, and trade deficits with China since China's accession to the World Trade Organization have resulted in the loss of 3.2 million jobs, more than 2 million of them in manufacturing;
WHEREAS jobs lost due to trade devastate families and entire communities and permanently reduce lifetime earnings for hundreds of thousands of workers;
WHEREAS the long decline of the American manufacturing base-exacerbated by bad trade policies that reward outsourcing-has undermined our economic security and poses a direct threat to our national security as well as local economies;
WHEREAS the off-shoring of manufacturing and service jobs deprives local, state, and federal governments of sorely needed revenues, jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions of federal, state, county, and municipal employees and construction workers whose jobs depend upon infrastructure building, repair, and maintenance;
WHEREAS under NAFTA-style trade rules, the U.S. trade deficit has increased dramatically since 1993, the year before NAFTA went into effect, to more than $476 billion in 2013;
WHEREAS the disproportionate voice of powerful global corporations in the formation of U.S. "free trade" agreements has advanced an economic agenda that threatens democracy by imposing a constraint on the laws and rules that local, state, and federal governments can implement without being the target of a trade law challenge;
WHEREAS NAFTA and all but two of the U.S. trade deals have...
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