Congressman Sherman (D-CA): Reject the Free Trade Agreement w/ South Korea

[amborin]

Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) today released the following statement on the planned consideration of the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement:

Congress should reject the pending FTA with South Korea. It is likely that the United States would be opened up to North Korean goods under the agreement’s liberal rules of origin.
Goods with up to 65 percent non-South Korean content can enter the United States with preferential, often duty free, treatment under this agreement. Nothing in this agreement prevents that foreign content from being North Korean.

Also, the language purporting to govern the so-called Kaesong Industrial Complex is intentionally vague. Goods entirely produced in sweatshops north of the DMZ may end up being given the same treatment as South Korean goods under the agreement.
The 40,000 workers at Kaesong are not paid by their South Korean employers. The money goes to the North Korean government. Along with several millions in fees, these payments provide hard currency for the North Korean government to maintain its grip on power and pursue nuclear proliferation.

If we are serious about denying North Korea the cash it needs to pursue its nefarious aims, we would ensure that this free trade agreement was clear, that no North Korean goods will be allowed into the United States....

snip

http://www.tradereform.org/2011/06/korea-free-trade-agreement-will-benefit-north-korea/

[robcon]

1. Free trade is the best economic policy there is.

This agreement should be passed: economic growth for both countries.

[w4rma]

2. Worst. Only best for leisure class investors. (nt)

[TheKentuckian]

3. For who? Not the poor and working folks of either country.

The Koreans get de facto slavery and we get massive job losses, debt, devalued currency, and cheap shit we don't need.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

4. Wrong. Fat cats get fatter and workers get screwed. (n/t)

[pampango]

6. Trade is such a small part of our economy that it is just a whipping boy.

It allows us to blame the foreign "boogey man" for our problems rather than our own power structure.

The countries that do trade a lot (like South Korea) are more progressive than we are. They apparently aren't as afraid of that foreign "boogey man".

South Korea's per capita's GDP is $30,000 almost identical to that of the EU and its distribution of income (GINI 31.4) is on a par with Europe and Canada - of course far more equitable than here. South Korea already has a free trade agreement with the EU which is important since they both trade with the rest of the world much more than the US does.

[JDPriestly]

7. Free trade leaves no oxygen for our local middle class.

Hope you enjoy your job at Walmart.

[pampango]

8. If "free trade" destroyed the middle class, Canada and Europe would be a wasteland

for the middle class. Neither are.

[JDPriestly]

9. European countries use the value added tax to supplement the

revenue from taxes on wages.

I am an advocate of the value added tax in the US. We could exempt food and children's clothing, but tax everything else 20%.

As long as Americans are relegated to low paying service sector jobs, we cannot raise sufficient revenue from wages to pay for our military, schools, medical care and government expenses.

Free trade has really harmed the US because of its impact on our tax structure.

That is why I dislike it so much.

Eventually, when the sewers around your town break and there is no money to repair them, you will rue the day that you supported free trade.

I have been in "nice" places in Mexico that had open sewers. That is how you live in a pre-industrial or post-industrial country. It's not about luxuries. It's about things like stinking sewage.

Welcome to the third world -- of free trade.

[pampango]

11. Why would progressive places like Europe and Canada engage in so much "free trade" if

it is bad for the prosperity of the middle class?

If "free trade" caused workers there to be relegated to "low paying service jobs", things would be worse in Europe and Canada than they are here, but that's not reality. You could say, "But the reason for that isn't the "free trade". It's Europe's pervasive labor unions, high and progressive taxation, more effective regulation of markets and banks, better education systems and superior social safety nets."

My response would be that all that is definitely true. And if Europeans thought that curtailing trade would make their societies even better they would do that, too. But they don't and there's a reason that they don't.

I agree with you that Europe has a more progressive tax structure, as could we if we wrested control of tax policy from our elite as Europeans did from theirs. The value added tax itself is not progressive, but since its proceeds end up being used to fund progressive policies that seems to be acceptable tradeoff to Europeans. If we ever consider adopting a VAT here, I think its adoption would have to be directly tied to funding for progressive programs.

[JDPriestly]

12. This is the key --

I agree with you that Europe has a more progressive tax structure, as could we if we wrested control of tax policy from our elite as Europeans did from theirs. The value added tax itself is not progressive, but since its proceeds end up being used to fund progressive policies that seems to be acceptable tradeoff to Europeans. If we ever consider adopting a VAT here, I think its adoption would have to be directly tied to funding for progressive programs.

But then, Europeans do not have a socio-phobia. They learned in WWII what Fascism is and how it destroys the life of a country.

We are only beginning to learn about the dangerous allure of Fascism. That's where we are, and it is very sad. It's like a stage in childhood development.

We think we are the biggest bully on the block and can conquer everything. That is the only reason we are in the free trade game.

Germans, for example, take a greater pride in their own workmanship. I doubt that they fall for the "Oh, this one is so much cheaper. Hmm. Made in China. Who cares. The price is right. So what if it is shoddy and flimsy and poorly made and won't do the job." That's what Americans fall for.

If you look at a pair of jeans made in the USA years ago and then at a pair of jeans made today who-knows-where, you will see the difference in the quality of seam finishing and other detailed work. It's pitiful what passes for sewing today. We are being taken by the free traders.

[bemildred]

5. Managed cooperative trade is the best there is.

Free trade is an abdication of government responsibility.

[xchrom]

10. +1

[Elwood P Dowd]

13. I see DU is down to only a couple of members who still support our suicidal free trade insanity.

Just how bad does it have to get before these people wake the hell up? We've lost 10 million jobs and 8 trillion dollars in trade deficits since the 1980s because of free trade and outsourcing policies. In reality, these trade deals are not really free trade but instead they're simply investment/outsourcing scams with a "free trade" name attached to them. They're written to benefit millionaire and billionaire investors and corporate executives at the expense of American workers. This is not David Ricardo's free trade, and we're not playing with the same rules as our trading partners. It's like a football game where our foreign trading partners and corporate America have a team with 13 players, and the American workers have a team with 10 players.

[pampango]

14. Nice rant. Can you point out a progressive country that trades less than the US does?

Or are we so "exceptional" that what works in Canada and Europe can't work here?

[Elwood P Dowd]

15. You obviously didn't understand much from my rant.

Canada and Europe don't agree to insane so called "free trade" shit like our government does. Not one of those governments has even come close to losing millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in trade deficits like we have. NOT EVEN CLOSE! When the hell are people like you going to wake up on this issue? I've shipped products to Canada and Europe since 1999, and the tariffs and VAT on my stuff often hits 30%. The same stuff coming from them to the US is never more than 5%. We have been conned, and you see the term "free trade" and fall all over yourself worshiping that republican/corporate propaganda.

[pampango]

16. "Canada and Europe don't agree to insane so called "free trade" shit like our government does."

You don't have to like it (or you can contend that the US is "different") but don't contend that Canada and European countries don't have more "free trade" than the US has. I could give you statistics showing that "free trade" is a larger part of the economies of Canada and European countries, but I doubt that would have much effect.

You are right that "(n)ot one of those governments has even come close to losing millions of jobs ..." (even though they trade more than we do). That is because they have created progressive government policies that have nothing to do with trade but with taxation, unions, education, safety nets, etc.

The VAT in Europe increases the cost of everything they manufacture by 30% (or whatever the figure is) even when they sell to themselves. Since we have no VAT our exports to them would automatically have a 30% price advantage. It is hardly surprising that Europeans thought this was a little unfair. Either they would have had to eliminate their VAT (which would decimate funding for their progressive programs) in order to compete with our exports or they had to try to get us to agree to level the field which is what happened.

If you think that was unfair, how would you have solved the problem? Forced Europe to eliminate their VAT (and the progressive programs that it funds)? Keep the VAT but allow for no adjustments so that their goods couldn't compete with our exports?

"Free trade" is a very small part of our economy; much smaller than it is in Canada and Europe. When you blame our problems on that (rather than our own AMERICAN elites who have skewed our tax system, decimated our unions, etc.), you are ignoring the real problem and implying the the progressive countries in the world have nothing to teach us.