Study: Free Trade Agreement with Korea will cost U.S. jobs

[Bluebear]

For Immediate Release: Thursday, July 1, 2010
Contact: Karen Conner or Eve Turow, [e-mail] 202-775-8810
The Obama administration has announced that it intends to finalize a new free trade agreement with South Korea (KORUS FTA) in time for the next G-20 summit in November.  Unlike the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) forecast of a small positive impact, EPI’s new Snapshot shows it will increase the U.S. trade deficit with Korea by about $16.7 billion, and displace about 159,000 American jobs within the first seven years after it takes effect.


http://www.epi.org/press/news_from_epi_free_trade_agreement_with_korea_will_cost_u-s-_jobs/

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Really great speech, though. nt

[Bluebear]

2. Fabulous. Nt

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[HereSince1628]

4. It's all part of a logical long term plan to de-fund defense spending...

:crazy:

First, let me remind you that if you want to play n-dimensional chess, you've got to throw away Occam's Razor.

So...

Vets and the American people have been told since WWI that our expeditions to visit foreign lands, meet new people and KILL them were all undertaken to preserve our way of life.

The loss in jobs and the movement of capital into foreign lands via the various free trade deals undermine our way of life.

Having lost a way of life that was worthy of defending we are free to make cuts in defense spending, a savings that will really make a difference to America's bottom line.

[ixion]

5. gee, no kidding

:banghead:

[HughBeaumont]

6. Millions of us should be hitting the streets.

But millions of us will blame the puppets while being conveniently blinded to the hands controlling their strings.

They'll never put humanity over profit. EVER.

[LWolf]

7. Free trade costs jobs.

Who knew???

I suppose, for some, I need this:

:sarcasm:

[woo me with science]

8. K&R nt

[amborin]

9. Jobs AND much more:

"Pacific Rim Mining Corp. just won the first stage in its attack under the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) demanding hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from the government of El Salvador over environmental and health policies.
The corporation is using the CAFTA provisions that grant foreign investors expansive new rights to sue governments in foreign tribunals over regulations or government actions that conflict with the pacts' special rights for foreign investors and that could undermine their future expected profits.

Wait, weren't we told that those outrageous NAFTA-style foreign investor special privileges -- that promote offshoring and expose our public interest laws to attack in foreign tribunals -- had been fixed in CAFTA?
So, we should not worry that the same provisions appear word-for-word in Bush Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with Korea,
Colombia and Panama? OK, we didn't buy it then, nor did congressional Democrats. Only 15 House Dems supported Bush's CAFTA,
which Obama opposed as a Senator.
So, what's up with the Obama folks now? Last month, Obama said he wanted to start moving the three leftover Bush FTAs toward Congress and instructed trade officials to fix the Korea FTA so it could move early next year. But so far, "fix" only means improving access for U.S. auto and beef exports. The administration will decide its "ask" of Korea this month.

And now like a warning flare comes this ruling in a CAFTA investor attack on a country's environmental and health policies.
When it comes to the lunatic NAFTA-CAFTA investor rights, the U.S.-Korea FTA poses a special threat -- because both countries are major capital exporters. That means, in contrast to U.S. FTAs with developing countries, there are hundreds of Korean firms operating here that could use the FTA's investor rights to skirt our court system and laws and demand taxpayer compensation in foreign tribunals for U.S. laws that they do not like. And the hundreds of U.S. firms in Korea could do the same there. (Click on the link above to see the locations of these firms.) Moreover, this private enforcement system covers the Korea FTA's financial services provisions, meaning the recent U.S. and Korea reregulation initiatives would be newly exposed to attack by numerous banks and insurance and securities firms.
The fact that an attack like Pacific Rim's would even be possible highlights what is wrong with our current trade agreement model. The very existence of these extraordinary foreign investor rights -- the notion that foreign corporations could be allowed to sue the U.S. government in private international tribunals, bypassing domestic courts -- undermines federal and state efforts to protect public health, safety, and precious natural resources."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8945799&mesg_id=8945799

[Bluebear]

10. +

[OhioChick]

11. K&R n/t

[kenny blankenship]

12. The REAL Obama jobs program

[hifiguy]

13. Of course it will

and as Ed Schultz pointed out last night virtually every country we have "free trade" agreements with practices some degree of protectionism to safeguard its own native industries. The only thing this will do is accelerate deindustrialization and the immiseration of the majority of ordinary people.

But we all know that the Current Occupant has the best interests of the middle class at heart, right? We can trust him, right? He's on our side, right? Ignore that Everest-sized mountain of evidence to the contrary, if you don't you're just helping the Repukes.

(Is a sarcasm tag REALLY necessary?)

[JoeyT]

14. Well geez, who could have known?

It's like a kid that keeps burning themselves no matter how many times you tell them the stove is hot or how many times they've done it before. Which doesn't work very well as a metaphor, because they're not burning themselves, they're burning everyone else.

[Brickbat]

15. Inconceivable!

[Bluebear]

16. !

[Bluebear]

17. Kick