Unions Intensifying Attacks on New Emerging Free Trade Pact

WASHINGTON (AP) — Labor unions are trying to stop a major trade pact dead in its tracks, just over two decades since they failed in a bid to stop the North American Free Trade Agreement.

This time the target is the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement to lower or eliminate most trade barriers among the U.S. and 11 other Pacific nations.

President Barack Obama, once a NAFTA critic, is pushing the new Pacific agreement and wants Congress to give him so-called "fast track" authority to move it through Congress untouched, without amendments — just as NAFTA and other major trade pacts were handled.

Sponsors say it would make U.S. companies more competitive worldwide. Unions say U.S. jobs would be lost along the way.

(Story by: Tom Raum, The Associated Press)