Byron Dorgan: “on Thursday of next week, U.S. officials will sign a trade agreement with Singapore. It will be the first free trade…”

“on Thursday of next week, U.S. officials will sign a trade agreement with Singapore. It will be the first free trade agreement that is negotiated under so-called fast track. Fast track, incidentally, is a procedure that the Senate adopted in a Byzantine way. They did it without my vote, but enough Senators did it so that we have a fast-track procedure, which is a guarantee that your trade negotiators can go overseas, go in a closed room, close the door, keep the public out, and then you reach a negotiation with another country. When you bring it back to the Senate, we will agree that none of us will be able to offer any amendment at any time. What we have said is, bring us a straitjacket so we can put it on and we can all grin. It makes no sense. That is what the Senate has done. So now we will have a free trade agreement coming back to the Senate, the first one under the so-called fast-track procedure, and it is done with the country of Singapore. Let me read what is in the trade agreement, just one piece. There are many, and I will talk about them in future days. All of this is cloaked in language that is hard to understand, but the implications are not hard to understand because it is related to American jobs. It all relates to waving goodbye to American manufacturing jobs.”