Trade deal vs. fact-free uproar: Our view

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this editorial misstated the rate at which U.S. manufacturing output has increased.

After a decade of talks, 12 nations in the Americas, Asia and Australia are closing in on a major commerce agreement. The Trans-Pacific Partnership would be the largest trade deal the U.S. has considered since the mid '90s, when it approved the North American Free Trade Agreement and a revised global trading pact.

Predictably, the TPP is stirring up as much angst as those prior agreements, and from the same sources. Pro-union Democrats are lining up against their own president and hoping to either filibuster the deal in the Senate, kill it in the House, or place so many negotiation demands on the Obama administration that completing the TPP becomes impossible.

Though the deal has not been finalized, much of its success or failure will be decided in the next few weeks. That's when Congress decides the terms under which the agreement is considered.

To have any chance of passing, Congress would have to agree to something called trade promotion authority, giving itself the right to accept or reject the deal, but not amend it.

Committees in both houses of Congress have done just that, but the Senate committee larded up its bill with amendments designed to alienate other countries.

One would require the TPP to include language banning all countries involved from participating in boycotts against Israel. Another, on human rights, is designed to keep Malaysia out. Yet another, on currency manipulation, is designed to irk the Chinese. More are planned when the bill reaches the Senate floor.

These poison pills were conceived largely by Democrats who lost interest in currency manipulation years ago, probably couldn't find Malaysia on a map, and were furious at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just weeks ago.

Their goal is to kill the deal.

That would be a shame. A major agreement is going to happen, one way or another. China is pushing an alternative plan, one that does not include any countries in the Americas, and that Asian countries would turn to if the trans-Pacific deal falls through.

That approach would freeze U.S. exporters out of the fastest growing region in the world. It would also enhance China's economic power and its influence over its neighbors.

The pan-Pacific deal, on the other hand, would help the U.S. retain a key role in the region, while promoting competition that would give consumers more choices and lower costs.

Democrats, however, are wedded to unions who blame trade, and trade agreements, for the decline in manufacturing jobs.

Theirs is a simplistic view that ignores the fact that manufacturing output is up 60% since the late 1990s, or 40% adjusted for inflation, showing that technology is the real job killer.

No one wants Congress to stifle technology because it has so many upsides. Trade has upsides as well, for exporters of high-tech goods, software, pharmaceuticals, agricultural goods and more.

It's time for the U.S. to set aside petty concerns and stand up for its strategic interests. The Trans-Pacific Partnership shouldn't even be a close call.

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