Trade Deficit Skyrockets

March was an awful month. The U.S. Commerce Department reported that the trade deficit expanded by 43 percent over the previous month – the largest monthly surge since 1996.

The trade gap now stands at $51.4 billion. That includes a $6.3 billion trade deficit with Japan, a TPP partner country, which stands to benefit from TPP supporters' refusal to add strong sanctions against currency manipulation to the Fast Track bill.

"It's a fact that trade deficits cost American jobs, and fast-tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership would just increase the trade deficit and cost even more jobs," said Michael Wessel, a Commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. "Worse yet, any gains in exports we make can be wiped out by currency manipulation, which the TPP completely ignores. The rules we're supposedly writing with the TPP are the ones we've followed for far too long: importing cheaper goods and exporting U.S. jobs."