As far as this dispute with Canada, I don't recall the particulars. A link would be helpful.

NAFTA went into effect in 1994. Country of Origin Labelling was part of the 2002 Farm Bill.

That resulted in 1 million net U.S. jobs losses, a staggering $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners and served as a blueprint for other corporate trade deals that have eviscerated the middle class and destroyed over half our manufacturing. This is what happens when a government gets taken over by the corporate class.

so I really don't know what you are driving at. I am surprised though by your nonchalant attitude about the harm NAFTA has caused this country. I guess it's no big deal to you.

But we were immediately confronted with tariff threats every time. This is something US cattlemen have wanted for decades (though US packers have opposed it). After NAFTA and GATT we could finally produce some meat labeling requirements without an immediate tariff spike in retaliation.

When a country like America is running perennial trade deficits with every single country on earth it means we are importing way more of the their products than they are buying from us. That means when another country threatens tariffs with how they want our products labeled or any other trade dispute for that matter "we hold the cards", not them. When they talk about raising tariffs it is a bluff because they don't buy much from us anyway. But when we say, if you do that "we will raise tariffs on your products" you get their attention. This country has suffered from the worst sellout trade representatives going back more than 30 years because the corporate class wants it that way. You seemed lost in minutia. America has been on the losing side of a trade war for decades and the result is everywhere to see in America today.

Every quintile is better off in 2015 than in 1993. Unemployment is lower. Discouraged worker rates are lower. Wages are up. Incomes are up. The bill of goods you're being sold that things are worse now than before is just false.

Politicians are very good at invoking nostalgic mostly-mythical golden ages in the past, but that doesn't mean you have to fall for it.

America's real standard of living has been on the decline for more than 25 years. You obviously don't travel much around the country or perhaps are too young to understand. Citing massaged statistics from think tanks that have a vested interest in corporate trade policies is pure propaganda. There was a time when a regular worker could support a family without having the spouse work, buy a home, put the kids through school, buy a car, take a family vacation, help put the kids through college, afford health care without going into massive debt. Do you think this describes the average worker today? That is REAL standard of living, not B/S propaganda to make people feel good while they are being robbed. And that was not some mythical golden age, it described America prior to 1980.

Mixing race with trade policies is last refuge I suppose. From what I see today our trade policies have absolutely devastated minorities while impacting white males to lesser extent. So, I really don't know what you are talking about. You need get out more and see what's going on in our cities and countryside. Maybe talk with real people. Might help ya.

As has Hispanic income growth. Black and Hispanic incomes are still lower than white incomes by a good deal, but the gap has been closing, and this has caused significant resentment among working class whites, which gets exploited by politicians.

Similarly, world incomes are way, way up over that period (the past 30 years have seen the greatest reduction in world inequality, ever), and this has caused significant resentment among working class whites in industrialized nations, who are basically the only group that hasn't shared in this increase, which, again, gets exploited by politicians.

but Our elected officials are tasked to represent the interests of the American people, not the rest of the world. It is exactly that wealth transfer from the U.S. to other nations that has caused the standard of living in the U.S. to decline. Perhaps you don't care but most Americans do. #2, I don't know where you are getting your numbers on Black income growth but they certainly aren't tuned to young blacks today where unemployment ranges 25- 50%.
You obviously like selected stats from dubious sources.

in 1930 to restrict imports. It was signed by Herbert Hoover and has been amended several times since then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_of_Origin_Labeling

this new trade bill may do away with country of origin labeling.

Though if TPP or TTIP has any addendums to GATT/ARO on origin labelling nobody's said anything about that.

It looks pretty clearly like NAFTA was a buffer against Canadian influence for the better part of a decade in this case, though.

It's just one of the less egregious aspects of TPP.

much more than for what they have done. For instance, most job losses in the past 100 years have been due to technological advances, new machines and automation that allows fewer people to do jobs that used to require many people. Trade pacts have had no effect.

Most trade pacts involve regulatory apparatus that allows disputes to be resolved. Disputes existed before trade pacts, but then the trade pacts get blamed for the resolutions, which are unlikely to have been handled better without regulatory apparatus...and so forth.

General malaise with the way things have happened flourishes best when it has an acronym to build a narrative around. Yet theoretical alternatives, paths not taken, are unlikely to have led to less general malaise.

You are mixing causes up. America has been thrown out of scores of industries from consumer electronic to furniture and the surviving manufacturing industries have seen large market share declines. That has nothing to due with tecnological innovation which is both good and unavoidable. It has to do with whole sale offshoring of industrial capacity. And speaking of automation, America is an also ran to the likes of Japan and Germany.