Help American workers. Pass TPP.

The U.S. will never again be the global capital for low-skill manufacturing, and attempting to reclaim that title by turning away from trade and erecting protectionist measures would be a fool’s errand. The 1950s-era economy is gone and never coming back — more as a result of technology than trade.

Most of the manufacturing jobs lost over the past two decades have been automated out of existence, not lost to trade. As goods and services are increasingly purchased online, greater access to foreign markets is essential to American businesses, including our manufacturers, which increasingly depend on foreign markets to support jobs here at home. For instance, U.S. auto exports more than doubled between 2009 and 2014, topping 2 million cars and trucks for the first time in 2014. Shipments of “made in the USA” cars to China rose tenfold in that period. And without the growth in trade that the U.S. has experienced during that time, many more Americans — in manufacturing and other industries — would be out of work.

The challenge we face today is finding ways to create more high-wage jobs and to ensure that more Americans have the skills and education they need to qualify for them. Such jobs tend to be dependent on foreign markets for materials, labor and customers. Breaking down barriers to those markets, which TPP will do, is essential to America’s future in the global economy.