With Congress expected to vote today on three major trade agreements, both critics and defenders are jockeying for one last shot at winning public support. While the debate over each agreement has focused at times on issues of human rights and fiscal transparency, the real hot potato, especially here in Maine, is the "jobs" issue.

Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree this afternoon spoke out against all three trade agreements. On the floor of the House, Pingree painted the Panama agreement as just another NAFTA, with the potential to do the same type of economic damage

"In Maine alone, we have lost 31,000 manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was ratified in 1994. In addition to manufacturing jobs it has hurt our agricultural and fishing sector and has had a huge impact on the economy of our state," Pingree said.

Pingree says the South Korea and Colombia agreements will only add to the pain, and repeats the line that critics have used to muster opposition. "And here we are today voting on three more trade agreements that could have the same devastating consequences for American jobs. Why would we do this at a time when we desperately need these jobs right here in the United States?"

Fellow Democrat Mike Michaud, a leading opponent in Congress of NAFTA and other free trade agreements, minced no words in going after the adminstration.

"President Obama is going to give in to the Washington elites once again," he said. "The working people and the middle class don't what these trade agreements, and they definitely don't want any more Wall Street-centric, beltway-based policies from the White House or Congress. They want Washington to wake up."

But the Obama adminstration insists that it's been listening to the critics, and has taken great pains to craft all three proposals with an eye to their concerns. "We've recognized that many Americans have begun to question the value proposition of trade," says U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who was offered to MPBN for an interview this morning.

Kirk says the administration has crafted a trade policy that levels the playing field, and gives the U.S. fair access to new markets, so that U.S. companies to can create jobs here. "In the case of Korea, this will be an opportunity for us to add almost $12 billion in exports and a similar amount to our GDP, and create 70,000 jobs at a time when that's what Americans tell us they care about more than anything."

And Kirk insists that all three trade agreements have been crafted after close consultation with various groups that might be directly affected. The South Korean pact, says Kirk, has been endorsed not only by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the auto manufacturers, but also by the United Auto Workers and United Food and Commercial Workers unions.

"And we did it because we stayed at the table, we got a better deal," Kirk says. "It is fair. It is balanced, and not numbers produced by my office but independent economists have all projected this agreement will help us add 70,000 jobs to the economy. I respect the opinions of your congressional leaders and senators, but I think on balance this agreement is going to be good for America, and we know at least it'll going to be good for Hussey Manufacturers right there in Maine, in North Berwick."

A call to Hussey Seating was not returned by airtime.

Critics of the three trade deals say they remain unpersuaded by adminstration's sales pitch. "Absolutely not," says Sarah Bigney of the Maine AFL-CIO. "It seems that a lot of the side agreements or policies they've tried to enact to address some of our concerns are a lot of lip service."

Bigney also serves on the board of the Maine Fair Trade Campaign. She says there's been no proof, for example, that Colombian authorities have acted to stop violence against workers and labor activists in that country, or that the Panama agreement will actually assure enforcement of banking transparency provisions.

As for Korea, Bigney says she believes Maine stands to lose jobs. "Here in Maine for example, Bath Iron Works, the workers there, are already facing some competition from South Korea on some of the parts they make for ships," she says. "They've already been losing work to a South Korea company, and if this trade agreement passes this will only exasperate that."

Other critics of the three trade agreements say there are major issues, other than jobs, that have not been addressed.

"We feel very frustrated that we were not heard," says Peggy Rotundo, former chair of the Citizen Trade Policy Commission in Maine. Rotundo says there are still concerns about how the NAFTA model is enforced, and how disputes are adjudicated.

She says those issues were raised with Trade Representative Ron Kirk during a visit to Maine. "That model did not change after he visited us," she says. "It's still a NAFTA model that's in these three agreements and they pose a significant challenge to our sovereignty as a state and our capacity to govern ourself."

Both the House and Senate are expected to take up the trade agreements this evening.