Is your job at stake?

The first order of business when Congress returns next week is to vote on giving the president the power to negotiate the big trade agreement known as the Trans Pacific Partnership.

I’m pretty sure the Republicans were tempted to nickname it “Obamatrade,” except, as it turns out, a lot of them are in favor of it.

It’s the Democrats who hate it. Democrats like presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who has said it could cost you your job. Just look at Nike, he said, which once upon a time made its running shoes in the United States.

“Today, over 330,000 workers manufacture Nike’s products in Vietnam, where the minimum wage is 56 cents an hour,” Sanders said.

But the way American companies see it, that’s yesterday’s news. Companies in states that depend on products shipped across the Pacific want America to set the rules.

“Absolutely,” said Eric Schinfeld, President of Washington State’s Council on International Trade.

“Trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership force countries to raise their standards,” he said.

So we can tell Vietnam that their minimum wage is unfair and they must raise it?

“That is exactly right,” Schinfeld said.

And it turns out there’s a similar deal under discussion &#8212 between the U.S. and Europe. And it occurs to me that if we’re allowed, under this deal, to tell Vietnam to raise its minimum wage, what would stop the high-wage nations of Europe from telling us to raise our minimum wage. And wouldn’t Bernie Sanders actually like that?

No wonder Congress is confused.