Obama bows to Wall St., Chamber of Commerce, DLC: reaches job-sucking NAFTA-type deal with S. Korea

[brentspeak]

Multinational companies, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the DLC are all giddy about it:

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20101203-713029.html

"I would hope that it gets approved by spring," said Chuck Dittrich, vice president for regional trade initiatives at the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents multinational corporations.

snip

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue promised the trade group "will do everything in our power to round up the votes."

snip

Ed Gresser, president of the Democratic Leadership Council, said he expects the deal to gain the majority of support in Congress that it needs. He said passage sometime next spring would be reasonable to expect, with the implementation of the E.U. agreement presenting a good target.

Public Citizen's Lori Wallach on this "deal":

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/international-taxes/131965-us-south-korea-reach-trade-deal

Lori Wallach, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said Obama was taking ownership of a Bush-style deal that would ship jobs overseas and put the president’s reelection in peril.

“Choosing to advance Bush’s NAFTA-style Korea free-trade agreement rather than the new trade policy President Obama promised during his campaign will mean more American job losses,” said Wallach, whose group is often aligned with unions. She said the deal “puts the White House at odds with the majority of Americans who, polling shows, oppose more of the same job-offshoring agreements.”

Wallach has pointed out that the central issue isn't S.Korea allowing US cars and beef to be sold within its borders, it's the http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/obama-trade-policy-perils_b_789352.html">the offshoring-promoting foreign investor protections contained within the deal.] Obama's deal with S.Korea didn't address that, even though he himself campaigned against these kind of job-sucking NAFTA deals.

This is day...forgot the count...since Obama has failed to live up to his campaign promise of renegotiating NAFTA.

[beforeyoureyes]

1. the corruption, lies, betrayals, and onslaught is so fast and furious

Very tough to keep up

Shock & awe.

[jillan]

2. Your last sentence - that's how Olbermann should be ending his shows from now on.

[asdjrocky]

3. It's the Shock Doctrine being used right here at home.

And it looks like it's in full force.

[ProSense]

4. Statement by Sander Levin

who voted against NAFTA, CAFTA and most trade agreements and has been a strong advocate for tighter regulations.

Chairman Levin Statement on U.S. – South Korea Free Trade Agreement

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[pa28]

5. Your last sentence stole my response.

Somehow the "serious people" in Washington cling to their beloved dogma of a global economy despite evidence it's just, you know, destroying the fabric of the country.

[jefferson_dem]

6. Has the UAW spoken out yet. The other day they said they could support the Korea deal...

provided it cam with fixes from the old Bush-negotiated version. According to reports, this deal has some fixes... though I don't know if they are the ones the UAW was looking for.

[AdHocSolver]

8. These so-called trade deals do not address the core problem causing the U.S. trade deficits.

The problem is that all the trade agreements that exacerbate our trade deficits with these countries give the multinational corporations the ability to make super profits by offshoring jobs to low wage countries.

When wages are significantly lower in foreign countries, U.S. companies who want to produce goods in the U.S. using American labor cannot compete with manufacturers that offshore the work and import the products that they sell.

General Motors is making good sales and profits selling cars in China, but they manufacture those cars in China because it is cheaper to do so. This is true for every manufactured item that is manufactured in low wage countries.

It is fraudulent to claim that these trade agreements like NAFTA will help create jobs in the U.S. The goods that China or Korea might import from the U.S. can always be made more cheaply in their own countries or in other low wage countries. How could goods manufactured in the U.S. compete on price? Again, what is to stop G.M., for example, from manufacturing parts or even assembling cars for the Korean market in China, and labeling them as American imports?

The ONLY way to save American jobs is to apply import quotas and tariffs on goods imported from low wage countries to create a parity for the wage differences between the trading countries.

Korea, like China, will NOT import enough American made goods to offset our trade imbalance because it will not be profitable for the American corporations to make it here and sell it there.