WASHINGTON, April 22 (UPI) -- The largest international free trade deal in history was slowed down in the Senate Wednesday over fears that it undermines American workers' wages.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, a union of 12 nations intended to spur trade among them, is presently being negotiated by the Obama White House and would permit Congress to accept or reject trade deals.
Some lawmakers and White House officials hoped to "fast track" the legislation. However, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., used an old parliamentary tactic on Wednesday to slow it down -- and prevented the Senate Finance Committee from addressing the bill for hours.
Sanders said the deal will actually kill U.S. jobs, and favors large special interests and corporate lobbyists far more than it does the American public.
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"Look at whose side multinational corporations are on this. How do the drug companies feel about this? How does Wall Street feel about it?" Sanders asked on MSNBC Wednesday.
"I think it's time we slowed down fast track," he said on his official website.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative says the deal "will boost U.S. economic growth, support American jobs, and grow Made-in-America exports to some of the most dynamic and fastest growing countries in the world."
Sanders likened the TPP to the semi-controversial North American Free Trade Agreement, signed under President Bill Clinton in 1994, which set trilateral rules for trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"They told us NAFTA was going to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. NAFTA cost us jobs," he said in an interview with National Public Radio.
An Independent, Sanders also sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, USA Today reported Wednesday, informing him of his concerns.
"Instead of rubber stamping the agreement, Congress and the public deserve a fair chance to learn what's in the proposal," he said in the USA Today report.
The unusual tactic Sanders employed came in the form of an objection when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell routinely asked for any challenges to a rule that forbids Senate committees from meeting and conducting business when the Senate is in session. The procedure is frequent but hardly ever draws an objection.
Sanders' use of the objection was intended to delay the finance committee's meeting and pushing the trade deal through Congress.
Once the Senate went into recess, only then could the committee take up the legislation. Sanders claimed that there is significant opposition to the TPP and that he just wants the public to understand what the deal will mean.
"Americans should not be forced to compete against desperately poor workers like those in Vietnam who make as little as 56 cents an hour," he said.
Earlier in the day, Sanders attended a rally of about 600 federal contract workers who are on strike to protest low wages. Obama last year signed an executive order to raise the minimum pay for such federal workers to $10.10 per hour.
