Roger Cohen's a confirmed internationalist -- a believer in global trade and in America being engaged militarily and politically, with the rest of the world.  So his chagrin over the sudden opposition to the Obama Administration's signature trade deal is not surprising, but it's good to know what the other side thinks.

Cohen doesn't make any shocking arguments in favor but he hopes the TPP will be approved by Congress before the next election so that:

• Cements America's status as an economic and diplomatic power in the Pacific
• Draws trade partners like Vietnam away from China and towards the U.S.
• Will reduce poverty throughout the Asian countries who are party to the deal
• Will be a net wash for the U.S. in terms of jobs with some manufacturing and "low skill" job loss offset by jobs higher up the food chain.

So, we find ourselves having an old discussion. If you were to grant all Cohen's points, I think you can still rationally oppose the deal.  That includes point four, which cites (of all things) the The Peterson Institute for International Economics (that group funded by a hedge fund billionaire that wants to get rid of Social Security) as evidence that there be ne job "churn" rather than losses, as a result of the deal. Churn implies winners and losers.  People are not going to have their "low skill" (I hate that term) jobs replaced by better paying jobs in the export industry.  They will lose their jobs and other people will get higher paying jobs in the export industry.

That said, all the other points in favor of the agreement are important.  We should have economic and diplomatic power in the Pacific.  We should forge closer relationships, based on law, with countries like Vietnam, we should hope that the trade we engage in raises living standards worldwide, even though we should be most concerned by rising living standards within the U.S.

An obvious, but impolitic solution for this would be a living wage, across the board, guaranteed to all Americans whether they're working or not.  An also impolitic solution, but on a smaller scale, would be to guaranty such income to anybody who loses their job in an affected industry within a decade of the trade agreement being signed.

The point here being that manufacturing workers cannot feed their children from the wages of jobs who have gone to somebody else.  It's not enough that a trade agreement has a net neutral effect on jobs.  The trade agreement should have a revenue neutral effect, at least on the earnings of individuals who are affected.

Of course opponents on the right will say this is the government "picking winners and losers" but trade agreements do that anyway.  For committed internationalists like Cohen, this arrangement would be a neat way for them to accomplish their goals. Maybe their wouldn't be populist objections to such agreements if the government were to insure vulnerable individuals that they might lose their jobs but never their income.