The United States and 10 other countries are negotiating our next big trade agreement, called Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. It's time to re-examine what works and what doesn't work.

Imagine a thought experiment, where we put environmentalists in each country in charge of negotiating the next trade agreement. Preposterous! I know. Stick with me. This is a thought experiment.

"Wear Jeans? Why Made in America Matters to You" is a cross-post from the Youth Monument blog, by Celeste Drake, trade and globalization policy specialist at the AFL-CIO. 

“Buy American.” “Made in America.” In today’s interconnected world, those ideas might seem more like leftovers from the Cold War—not important maxims for America’s future. After all, young Americans are drinking Colombian coffee in the morning, skyping with friends in the U.K. at lunch, buying a made-in-China iPhone in the afternoon and drinking Italian wine in the evening. The idea of “Buying American,” or economic patriotism, might seem quaint, if not outright ridiculous.

Fact is, making things in America isn’t an obsolete idea. It’s how we built this country into the largest economy the world has ever seen. And it’s imperative for America’s future. 

In a broad statement today at its annual winter meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on “How to Fix What Is Wrong with Our Economy,” the AFL-CIO Executive Council details the step-by-step policy decisions by business and government and the rise of corporate power over the past decades that brought the economy to its knees and outlines ways to fix the economy for the long term.

A new agency, announced yesterday by President Obama, to crack down on unfair trade practices by countries such as China, is “a step in the right direction,” says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.