In recent weeks, the president has been pressing the Congress to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the administration’s free trade proposal with El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. This week the House of Representatives is expected to take up the measure: but at what cost?

Pressing his case in a recent speech, President Bush claimed that the pact would aid U.S. farmers, businesses and workers, claiming “by passing CAFTA, the United States would open up a market of 44 million consumers for our farmers and small business people.”

But if this is such a slam-dunk case, why does such a broad, bipartisan coalition – including nearly 30 Republicans in the House of Representatives, business organizations, labor groups, family farmers, ranchers, churches and faith-based groups -strongly oppose CAFTA?

These opponents are hardly anti-trade zealots. Clearly, something else is going on here. During the president’s tenure in office, Congress has typically voted within 65 days after he has signed a trade agreement. But CAFTA has been on hold for more than a year because congressional opposition has remained steadfast.

I feel more intimately connected to this question than most: I am not only a member of Congress who will be voting on this deal in the coming weeks – I have also been one of the workers who could be hurt by it.

For almost 30 years, I was a millworker at the Great Northern Paper Co. in East Millinocket, as were my father and grandfather. Two days after I was sworn in to Congress in January 2003, I learned that the mill where I worked was bankrupt and shutting down. The mill was closing largely due to the pressures created by trade, after years of poorly thought-out trade deals that placed manufacturing industries at a huge disadvantage. I know firsthand – as do many Mainers – that with these layoffs and closings, when the business goes, so does the heart and soul of our communities.

This trend of trade-driven job loss is all too familiar in communities across America. In Maine alone, between 1998 and late 2004, the federal government documented 11,724 workers who lost their jobs due to trade, although the real, undocumented number is clearly much higher. It has been estimated that 24,000 Mainers have lost their jobs due to NAFTA alone.

When it comes to CAFTA, the benefit is pretty hard to find. Despite having 44 million inhabitants, the CAFTA nations only boast the purchasing power of New Haven, Conn. More than 40 percent of Central American workers work for less than two dollars a day. Clearly, under these conditions, CAFTA will not truly open new market opportunities for American products – as currently written, it merely allows more outsourcing and access to cheap labor markets with almost nonexistent environmental and labor standards.

At the end of the day, opponents of CAFTA have not asked for no trade deal at all, but merely for a simple renegotiation of the treaty in order to fix glaring problems and promote trade that is fair to workers on both sides. So far, the administration has refused.

How could such a bad deal for our workers pass? In recent days, the administration has authorized House leaders to secure votes with whatever is at hand, from extra funding for individual members’ districts in the highway and energy bills to the still incomplete annual appropriations bills. Members are being asked to trade away their votes for a trade agreement that only promises to trade away American jobs.

Two years ago, this tactic worked to pass the deeply flawed Medicare bill by one vote – leadership held open a 15-minute vote for three hours while they twisted arms in order to ensure its passage. It is expected that the CAFTA vote will be more of the same.

Is this the way that the people’s House should look after the best interests of our nation? What message does this send the American people and our work force? And why must these votes always be held in the dark of night? While working Americans sleep, their jobs are traded away in a Capitol Hill back room.

The administration may want this deal passed as quickly as possible, before opposition mounts even further. But the people who have suffered the most under our trade policies – including my neighbors, my co-workers and my family, and many of the good people of Maine – have earned the right to ask the simple question about what a new trade deal will mean for their families, and get some real answers before we move forward.

All Americans have earned this right. And we’re still waiting for the answer.

Michael Michaud is Maine’s 2nd District congressman.