Being a United States Senator from Vermont is a difficult job, but it pales in comparison to being President of the United States. As the junior senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders has far more leeway in the positions that he can take than President Obama does. He’s not just a senator from a single state, he’s a senator (along with Patrick Leahy) from perhaps the most progressive state in the union.

When it comes to assessing the wisdom or advisability of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, Sanders is under far less pressure from entrenched powers than the President is. There are zero (count ‘em, none) Fortune 500 companies headquartered in Vermont. Vermont accounts for only 0.2% of exports from the United States. Take these two factors, and you put a representative in a position to truly look out for the well-being of individual workers and small businesses.

Doing so is not necessarily a slam-dunk. Vermont’s neighbor, New Hampshire, also is home to zero Fortune 500 companies and accounts for only 0.3% of American exports. Yet Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire has a voting record that is more conservative than that of Richard Shelby of Alabama or Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

All of which is to say that a treaty of the magnitude of the TPP should not be considered cavalierly by the United States Senate. Yet this is precisely what President Barack Obama proposed and what the Senate came close to doing. Fortunately, on May 12, 2015, a sufficient number of Democrats joined with anti-Obama Republicans to forestall the Fast-Track consideration of the partnership. It appears that now the Senate will assume its normal responsibility when it comes to ratifying treaties; it will provide its advice and consent.

The stakes in the treaty are just too high for any other approach. This is a treaty that presumably spans the Pacific Ocean, but does not include a country as large as and with as much international trade as China. One of the goals of the treaty is to strengthen relations between the United States and selected Pacific countries, but there is apparently little in the proposed agreement to ensure that China is not left on the outside looking in. I say “apparently” because part of the Fast Track approach has been to limit access to the actual text of the treaty. This includes Members of Congress.

In Senator Sanders’ words:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy. It will also negatively impact some of the poorest people in the world.

The TPP is a treaty that has been written behind closed doors by the corporate world. Incredibly, while Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry and major media companies have full knowledge as to what is in this treaty, the American people and members of Congress do not. They have been locked out of the process.

Sanders states that the agreement would be at the expense of workers, consumers and the environment. Supporters of these three interests represent a large piece of the pie that twice elected Barack Obama. It may be difficult to understand that the President is risking their ire and discounting their support, but the forces in the United States behind the treaty are vast and powerful. They include bankers, manufacturers of good and services that are exported, and a host of other business on America’s Pacific coast that profit from trade. These forces are doing what they would be expected to do, promoting their own economic self-interestd. Such is the nature of capitalism. And when we broaden our view to the relationship between monied interests and politics, it is no surprise that these are among the top financial backers that the President has had in his campaigns.

As to why Senator Ayotte of New Hampshire looks at this and many other issues quite differently from Bernie Sanders, all we need to do is to look at her primary contributors. In many ways, they read as a group similar to the Presidents big-time contributors. Senator Sanders takes no contributions from Wall Street. In contrast, nineteen of Senator Sanders’ twenty largest contributors are labor unions.

We are most fortunate to have a senator and now presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders who is not allowing the country’s largest economic interests to guide his position on an issue as important as the TPP. It’s likely that President Obama will continue to slug it out for the treaty for the remainder of his term. As with so many mysteries about his distance from progressive positions on key issues, we can only hope that when he writes his memoirs, he will let us know if he truly embraced the TPP, or if he felt that he owed it to certain interests to support it. Maybe he’ll write his memoirs during the administration of President Bernie Sanders.

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In the 19^th Century, the Victorian historian Thomas Carlyle coined the phrase “dismal science” for the field of economics. With the help of new insights and the world of computing power, it has become more accurate, like a physical science. However, there are still vast realms of uncertainty, and that certainly is true as we consider the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership. Some call the TPP “NAFTA on steroids,” and if you like NAFTA, this must be good, and if you don’t then we have a problem.

The chief American proponent for the agreement is President Obama, but by listening to him you would hardly know it. He seems to speak about it only in secrecy, which is interesting because that is the way in which he wanted the U.S. Senate to consider the terms of the Partnership. The Senate complied last week by putting it on a “fast-track” for consideration, thereby forbidding amendments or filibuster. Debate and discussion will be quick and without nuance, resulting in an expeditious up or down vote. While that might be desirable in the case of a presidential nomination, it hardly seems appropriate for a complicated economic pact laced with unintended consequences.

Supporters and opponents of the Partnership agree that it will be a bonanza for multi-national corporations. If you believe in top-down or trickle-down economics, then “what’s good for business is good for the United States” (and by extension, the world). If you’re somewhat suspicious of the motives and practices of large multi-national corporations, then you have plenty of reason to pause in offering support for the Partnership.

For those who are not direct beneficiaries of the largesse of big business, there are two key questions to initially ask, (1) would the loss of wage gains of American workers be worth the savings for American consumers, and (2) on an ethical level, are we comfortable with American workers losing economic power while laborers in developing countries see their wages, and hence purchasing, power rise? There are other important considerations, such as what impact the TPP would have on American and global environmental issues, how would labor safety and working conditions be affected, and is the establishment of “private courts” really a fair way to settle international disputes?

Let’s take issue one, the loss and gains for American workers and consumers. The TPP should result in lower prices for American consumers, because it will make it easier for companies to produce goods and services and overseas, distant from prevailing American wages and salaries.

Should we be concerned about the prices that American consumers are paying? Below is a chart representing changes in the Consumer Price Index over the past three years, as calculated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In only one month over the past three years has inflation reached 3 percent, and this past February, we actually had deflation, prices falling.

The concerns of the American middle class and the poor have not been about high prices, rather about job opportunities, job security, and salaries that provide the necessary income to support a family. As shown so clearly by the Economic Policy Institute,

The pay of American workers was increasing along with productivity until the late 1970s. Since then, wages have essentially remained stagnant, while productivity has more than doubled. In other words, corporations are increasing their earnings at the expense of the sweat and intellectual prowess of their employees. More and more households now have two wage-earners, and in some cases, families are worse off now with two wage-earners than they were a generation ago with one. If one of the fundamental questions in considering the merits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership is whether to look for ways to benefit the American worker rather than the American consumer, the evidence seems to be clear that consumers are doing well-enough, and workers are struggling. Workers need the help, and the TPP would not be good for them.

The second question is whether the increase in wages for workers in developing countries is more important than increasing wages for American workers. From a global and non-biased point of view, it may be better in the short run to favor the benefits that workers in developing countries would accrue with passage of the TPP. However, in virtually every developing country, it would be better to put laborers to work on projects needed in their countries, such as infrastructure, housing, schools, and health facilities. With the TPP, most of the products that they would produce would be for the benefit of foreigners. At the present time, it is fair to argue that helping American workers close the gap between their incomes and those of the wealthy is of greater importance. The United States still has a long way to go in creating more economic and political equality, and that should be our first order of business. As the U.S. does that, it can play a fundamental role in helping the economies of developing countries by providing them with the capital and skills to make their economies more self-reliant. Once that is done, they can participate more in international trade in a way that benefits their citizens as both workers and consumers.

The TPP is not an easy issue, but considering how it will furtively be considered by the U.S. Senate (and American people) and the damage that it will do to American workers, it seems that the prudent position would be to oppose the TPP. It’s a shame that, in this case, President Obama favors action that can be so detrimental to American workers.

For a quick, visual explanation of the problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, what this animation offered by  former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

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