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Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, is not impressed by the visit President Obama plans to make聽Friday聽to the Oregon headquarters of Nike to argue for a trade deal with 11 other Pacific Rim nations.

鈥淚f you lose your job, the fact that you can buy less expensive shoes doesn鈥檛 help much,鈥� Representative Levin said at a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters聽on Thursday. Nike has operations in Vietnam, one of the nations included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP.聽

Levin is a leader in opposing TPP, which covers 40 percent of the world鈥檚 commerce, citing secrecy surrounding the deal and insufficient worker protections, among other issues.聽

To gain leverage over TPP, he and other Democrats are blocking passage of trade promotion authority (TPA). That legislation would allow the president to submit trade deals like TPP to Congress for an expedited, up-or-down vote. TPA is expected to come up for a vote in the Senate next week.

鈥淯ntil it is clear where this is going and problems are being solved in TPP that remain, it is our judgment of so many of us that it is really, really important not to give up our leverage.鈥� Levin said.聽

Both House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio and Ways and Means chair Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin have said Democratic votes will be needed to pass TPA in the House, where action on the measure is not expected until after a Memorial Day recess.聽

鈥淚t鈥檚 a small fraction at this point of House Democrats鈥� who would vote to support TPA, Levin said.

A key area motivating Levin鈥檚 objections is what he claims is a lack of adequate protection for workers harmed by trade. 鈥淲e need to have worker rights and environmental provisions... It is important to have not only the language, but the reality.鈥� For example, Levin cited meeting a woman in Vietnam who was jailed for more than four years for trying to form a union.

One of Democrats鈥� key objections to the Asia trade deal is the level of secrecy surrounding details of the TPP. 鈥淭hey classified language that should not be classified,鈥� Levin said.

Columbia University economist and development expert Jeffrey Sachs, who also spoke at the breakfast, called the secrecy 鈥渁n extremely serious challenge to our democratic practices.鈥�

Among the controversial provisions of TPP that are publicly known is investor-state dispute settlement. This is a process by which聽multinational corporations can sue the governments of countries in which they invest for violating their property rights.聽

Levin said some recent corporate uses of ISDS were 鈥渞eally worrisome.鈥� He added, 鈥淐ountries don鈥檛 want to give away their jurisdiction to an arbitration panel.鈥�

The longtime Ways and Means member also pushed back against the Obama administration鈥檚 claim that if the United States did not conclude a deal on TPP, China would be empowered to set more of the rules governing trade. 鈥淭o simply say that because of China we need to pass a defective TPP misses the importance of the economic issues and I think overstates the security aspects.鈥�

Trade pacts 鈥渁re not rightly labeled as trade agreements, though we call them trade agreements. They are international business agreements,鈥� Professor Sachs said. 鈥淭he ramifications of these agreements go well beyond trade.鈥� They typically affect trade access issues like tariffs, foreign investment dispute settlement, and regulatory matters like drug pricing and patent rights.