At the end of last month, Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), better known as „fast track“ for various trade agreements, was approved after a series of back and forth procedural moves by Congress. This means that Congress no longer has the (Constitutionally-provided) power to have a say in the trade deals the administration is creating, other than a single up-or-down vote when everything is set in stone. There was, however, one tiny poison pill that Senator Bob Menendez supposedly hid in the TPA concerning the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. And that was that it could not be used if the trade agreement included countries that were listed as a „tier 3 nation“ by the State Department when it comes to human rights violations. Malaysia, one of the countries that is a part of the TPP, has been designated a „tier 3 nation“ by the State Department for a while now, due to serious human trafficking problems.