How Free Trade Hurts

Senators Bryan Dorgan and Sherrod Brown in the Washington Post

Over the past 100 years, Americans have built a thriving middle class. It's the envy of the world, and it didn't come easily. At the turn of the 20th century, America was split dramatically between the haves and have-nots. It was a harsh work world for many: nasty, brutish and, too often, short. Worker activism, new laws and court decisions changed all that during the past century. The American Dream seemed within reach of everyone who worked hard and played by the rules. That is what's at stake when we talk about trade policy: America's middle class and the American Dream. Fair trade is not the enemy of more trade. It's how we expand international trade without reversin

g U.S. economic progress.