Why would Congress pass three leftover Bush NAFTA-style "free trade" agreements with Korea, Panama and Colombia?
A report issued by the Economic Policy Institute concluded that the Korea FTA agreement not only fails to create jobs for American workers, it would result in the net loss of 159,000 U.S. jobs in its first seven years. And when one considers the details of the agreement, it is not hard to see why.
Under the proposed Korea FTA, the United States will eliminate tariffs on South Korean cars and trucks, increasing South Korean imports here, without requiring them to buy more of our vehicles. As a concession, South Korea did agree to waive certain environmental and safety requirements for up to 25,000 cars per U.S. maker -- if suddenly there is demand for U.S. cars in South Korea, whose consumers historically have not bought U.S. imports. More than 95 percent of the cars sold in South Korea today are made in South Korea.
Additionally, no changes were made to the low domestic content rules. Under the proposed agreement, up to 65 percent of the value of a vehicle can be sourced in low-wage nations like China and still qualify for the FTA's duty-free access. As a result, this agreement is an open invitation to the auto industry to send American auto parts jobs to China. Indeed, the Korean Auto Workers Union opposes this FTA because the low domestic content rules will also invite the South Korean parts industry to outsource their jobs to China. Meanwhile, Europe's trade agreement with South Korea requires 55 percent domestic content. Even NAFTA required 50 percent domestic content.
But while this FTA does not follow NAFTA's domestic content requirements, it does replicate NAFTA's special privileges for foreign investors. This allows foreign investors to evade domestic courts and use foreign tribunals to get reimbursed for regulatory costs from U.S. taxpayers. There are more than 270 Korean corporate affiliates in the U.S. who would be empowered to use these tribunals to raid our Treasury if the Korea FTA were implemented.
Among the laws exposed to attack are financial regulations that the U.S. and Korea implemented to restore stability after the devastating global financial crisis. The banks and securities firms that wrecked the global economy would be newly empowered under this deal to attack the policies designed to get them under control. Not surprisingly, the Korea FTA is loved by Wall Street's titans.
And the FTA even includes President Bush's ban on references to the International Labor Organization's Conventions -- the global labor standard. The agreement does nothing to require South Korean labor law to be put on equal footing with U.S. law, as under South Korean law, union members can be fired for striking and then sued for their employers' lost profits. The AFL-CIO, Teamsters, and many other American and Korean unions oppose this FTA.
With the Big Three beginning to recover and hire more workers thanks to major U.S. government assistance, it seems problematic that Congress would support an agreement that could boost the auto industry's profits, but only at the cost of more off-shored jobs.
The proposed Korea FTA is a bad deal for our country and America's workers. It's time to put the American worker first and stop these trade deals.
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PUBLIC FINANCING FOR CAMPAIGNS.
McCain says he will vote for it anyway!
Do you need anymore evidence that republicans are destroying the American people!
We have to put an end to the GOP and the bluedogs!
It is our only chance to fix the economy. republicans are not capable of doing the right thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
As for trade with Korea, let's first work at ending trade with China. We can't keep moving forward with these big government interferences until we address the colossal mistake that trade with China was and is.
End trade with China now! Trade with other democratic nations is fine. But never with communist dictators!
Maybe Mr Conyers can't tell Asian countries apart, but Korea actually bears little resemblance to China. It's a far more mature economy with quality goods that Americans want to buy AND a market for quality goods and services that Koreans would want to buy FROM AMERICANS.
SKorea's not a country that manipulates its currency to keep things cheap while relying on hundreds of millions of dirt-poor factory workers to break their backs making cheap goods. Get over it, Mr Conyers.
If anything, it is Koreans who should be peeved at this FTA, and I say this as a long-time Seoul resident: To accommodate Detroit, SKorea's ditching environmental regulations applied to all domestic and foreign carmakers because Ford/Chrysler are convinced that higher taxes on bigger engines (whether Hyundai, Honda, or Hummer) is a non-tariff trading barrier. So thanks for the more polluted air, Ford/Chrysler. But Koreans have held their nose at that because this bill is a win-win.
As for GM, it's long been the #2 or #3 automaker in Korea. They've all been rebranded as Chevrolet, though, so you can see the ROK in your Chevrolet. Loads do.
Stop depicting Korea as China (or Colombia). There's your problem: lumping the less prime-time-ready FTAs with Colombia and Panama in with SKorea's.
Face it, the US government, under both parties, is owned by the communist in Beijing. The communist have bought into all the largest US corporations and they use these "US" corporations to influence DC.
As for American workers, the key question is "why create more trade deals when we haven't fixed the problems with trade with communist China?"
Wrong. Yes Obama has been disappointing, but the alternative is worse ... MUCH WORSE.
In North Carolina there are still textile companies employing Americans, but if this agreement passed by our so-called representatives then all those American textile companies will be put out of business by South Korea! Not the direction we should be going in. Just another highlight that our government is broken and doesn't represent americans best interest.
What we should be doing is sending them food, in exchange for electronics. The Koreans were so desparate for food sources that they purchased hundreds of square miles of farmland in Africa. Meanwhile we pay farmers to keep their crops off the market here, to keep prices up. There is something wrong with that.
You know we had this discussion in the 20's and 30's. That's the 1820's and 1830's! Should we be as a nation an agricultural society with large plantations or a large middle class. Your champion would have been Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The poor and middle class champion would be Senator Daniel Webster. Fortunate for this country we choose the path of Daniel Webster and with tariffs became the strongest self supporting nation on the planet!
Unrestricted Free Trade has been as big a disaster for the working man as banking deregulation has been for the home owner!
Both Republican and Clinton Democrat goals. Clinton Democrats in case you progressives have not been paying attention Clinton Democrats are the Kinder Gentler Republicans we were warned about!
We have lost over 30% of our manufacturing jobs! What's your end game "Liberals Are Intolerant"?
To destroy this great nation??!?!?
We have not had "unrestricted free trade". Our trade partners are more restricted than we are and they rig the currency in their favor or subsidize companies. South Korea would not fall into this catagory.
However, what we want is South Korea buying more Boeing planes, Microsoft software, GM cars, medical equipment and devices, etc. etc. As for agriculture, I was addressing an obvious need of our trading partner and an area where we have excess supply.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce notes that U.S. farm products sold to South Korea face 54 percent tariffs, compared with 9 percent for Korean agricultural goods in the United States, and that U.S. automakers are hit with a 35 percent tariff in Colombia, compared with 2 percent for any vehicles coming from Colombia.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/10/12/congress-set-to-approve-stalled-free-trade-deals/#ixzz1afRYerzM
We stand to gain from this one. South Korea has high labor costs, just like us and Japan. They are not going to flood us with cheap goods like China did.
Right now, the UN is trying to get/force us into stronger gun control, without both houses of congress approving it through the constitutional legislative process. That is wrong, and I will not do the same thing to other nations.
There are two sides to the story.
Likely they already orchestrated the vote to allow certain individuals to go off the reservation and corral progressive votes for Democratic party members.
But that has been revealed to be pretty thin since his walkback on impeachment.