The US Civil War was fought over two things: cheap labor (slavery); and the import of cheap manufactured goods from England (free trade). The Yankees won, slavery was abolished, and a tariff was imposed to protect the North's infant manufacturing industries. Thus was launched the American economic miracle that made the United States the richest and most powerful nation on Earth.
But the Free Trade Agreement, signed by Bush I, the Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade, all signed by Clinton I, went far toward eliminating the tariff. The Obama-sponsored TPP and the TTIP were supposed to finish the job, creating a global system of free trade that would bring American workers into direct competition with Third-World workers, many of them earning mere pennies an hour.