Impacts

All the trade agreements are called free trade.  But most of it has little to do with free trade.  They are about extended patent protection, about enhanced copyright laws and certainly go far to enhance the power of corporations and their bottom line.  This is protectionism and the only reason it doesn't get called by that name is that a kind of "gentlemen's agreement" among the pundit or know-it-all class holds to the effect that only things that benefit the working people, such as job security for instance, get labelled protectionism.

As a practical matter, the trade agreement that the Democrats just fast tracked would work this way, as I understand it.  A bio-tech company could sue a state like Minnesota for restraint of trade, if Minnesota passed a law requiring genetically engineered products to be so labeled.  The argument would be that the state's action reduced the company's profits.  Similarly, if Minnesota wanted to give Minnesota companies preferential treatment in supply of the goods the state needed, for example requiring Minnesota's schools to search first for Minnesota grown foods for the children's lunch, the state would be open to lawsuit by any food company that could prove its bottom line to be injured.

The politicians who favor this will earn our disgust when they pass the thing in a month or two.  They speak for corporate money.  No one speaks for the American people, near as I can tell.

Jim