Bush poised to seal Singapore FTA today

[Nottingham]

Bush poised to seal Singapore FTA today
After three gruelling years of negotiation and lobbying, the president's signature will finalise landmark trade pact with Singapore

By Roger Mitton

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush is scheduled to sign the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (FTA) into law today.
At a White House ceremony, Mr Bush will complete a process that began almost exactly three years ago.
Reflecting the increased complexity of trade in today's world, the FTA is a staggering 1,400 pages long. It includes 240 pages of text, plus a series of long annexes and eight side letters.




http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,207908,00.html?

more...
The landmark document was co-signed by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Mr Bush in a glittering White House ceremony on May 6. Then the agreement went to Congress where it was subjected to intense grilling, first by trade, finance and judicial committees, then by the House of Representatives and the Senate.
In late July, the 435-member House passed the FTA by a majority of 117. A week later, the 100-member Senate voted 66-32 in favour of the trade pact.

more...
Three of the biggest US companies, ExxonMobil, Boeing and UPS, co-chaired a business coalition formed specifically to push for passage of the FTA.
Mr Robert Haines, the international relations manager for ExxonMobil, said: 'We are very pleased. The fact that the agreement was quickly passed by Congress before the summer recess signalled how important the US sees Singapore, both for national security as well as trade.'

:bounce:

The punch line is Boeing Exxon and UPS How much ya wanna bet they profited with this Trade agreement and the rest of Americans got screwed!

[kodi]

1. more job loses, more educated immigrants..thanks george

.

[mumon]

3. don't you mean LESS educated immigrants?

These are, as far as the US would be concerned, speaking parochially, the GOOD kind.

Lookatitthisway: Most Americans don't get Ph.D.'s in any number of fields (engineering, physics, etc.).

When educated immigrants come here, it means that money outside the US had to get them there. (Many get scholarships, but to get to the point where you qualify for a scholarship, somebody else foots the bill for an educated immigrant.)

Now, countries like India & China are actually drawing educated talent pools back to their countries from the U.S.- which is much, much suckier for the US than "educated immigrants."

Singapore's not another Shangri-La either, of course. But knowing lots of immigrant Ph.D.'s when I see stuff like this- and knowing that "qualified native born" people are simply not there- I just gotta speak up.

[kodi]

4. better read the trade accord

it allows into the US, EVERY YEAR 5,000 "educated" (skilled workers who are in demand in the US) singapore nationals with essentially permenant residence status.... every year. these are engineers, scientists and computer skilled workers.

a trade accord having the same details was passed with chile last month.

virtually all democrats in the house and senate were critical of this feature, and that when the US signed a similar aggreement with jordan, which was used as a model for the aforementioned nations free trade aggreement, jordan's agreement had no section to allow immigration of skilled labor.

in composite, because of the trade agreements with chile and singapore, 10,000 skilled workers a year will enter the US and can stay here for as long as the want with the US government's blessings.

at a time when this poor economy has affected white collar labor like none before, these are about as anti-american labor trade packages as ever signed.

the argument that the US needs skilled foreign workers is a canard. it is being done to reduce native workers' salaries by increasing the worker pool. there are tens of thousands of american scientists and engineers out of work. all one has to do is call a half dozen of the top head hunters in america who work in this area filling positions or visit high tech and manufacturing trade exhibitions to learn this .

[mumon]

5. I have to disagree...

The fact is, all technical skill sets are not created equal. In the particular field I in which I work, there are really NO American workers who are qualified enough- why? Because the work in general requires a graduate technical degree, AND specialization in the particular field. Guess where the overwhelming majority of grad-school graduates come from? In THIS field in which I work, a person with the right technical skills gets a job very, very quickly.



Going to a grad school does not automatically give a foreign born worker a covetted H1-B visa, which allows them to work in this country.


You are correct in assuming that employers do their damndest to hold down wages. Believe me, I know THAT too.

I've seen this problem from quite a few sides. As somebody who needs people to fill specific tasks, I cannot BEGIN to tell you how hard it is to find qualified people. Yes, even in THIS economy.


It's easy to bash "immigrants" who "take away" our jobs, but the real problem is Americans don't subsidize Americans going to grad school to get the education they need anymore. More and more world class R&D is being done outside the United States. The Democrats really have to address THAT problem, if they really want to retain good jobs over the long haul. It's simply a hit on a crack pipe to go after "educated immigrants."

[mumon]

6. And I might add...

I've seen the talent pool from Singapore.

I'm seriously underwhelmed.

(On edit: though Singapore happens to have a government policy to invest in R&D for commercial applications. They have venture capital which the government uses to incubate new businesses, which they then sell off - privatize- and make a profit.

The US can't compete in the long term without an industrial policy of its own.)

[w4rma]

2. Another one of these @#$%ing things. (n/t)

[Nottingham]

7. When US taps into stealing the Tech from Asia & Russia

will the other countries sit back and watch! I don't think so

And I still say we have major National Security Issue

:bounce: