New Free Trade Agreements Threaten to Kill Jobs and Labor Rights

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/new-free-trade-agreements-threaten-kill-jobs-and-labor-rights/1318363783

Last week, President Obama broke his campaign commitment and put three free trade agreements up for a vote in Congress. Business interests, ecstatic at the prospect, promise they'll bring us jobs. Experience tells us, however, their promises are worthless.

Nineteen years ago, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was in Congress, supporters said it, too, would create jobs and protect labor rights. Before agreeing to new free trade treaties with Colombia, South Korea and Panama, Congress should look at the dismal record.

Promise No. 1: A typical pro-business study predicted in 1992 that NAFTA would create 130,000 US jobs in two years, double US exports to Mexico and create 609,000 jobs there. Today Tom Donahue, CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, repeats the promise, saying the three new treaties also "are about creating jobs."

According to the Economic Policy Institute, however, between 1993 and 2004, the US trade deficit with Mexico ballooned by $107 billion, which cost 1,015,290 US jobs, 123,000 in California. But although those jobs went south, Mexico lost far more jobs because of the treaty than those relocated from the US.

More at the link --

[teddy51]

1. These free trade agreements are absolute BS. I don't understand what we haven't

learned from NAFTA that we need to repeat to finally come to, it doesn't work conclusion.

[Confusious]

2. They work for a few

The rest of us get the shaft. No loyalty to the United States, just a bunch of traitor corporations loyal only to money, in whatever form.

[teddy51]

3. They may work for a few, but those few are not middle America or our poor. n/t

[Confusious]

11. Yea, I pretty much said that. nt

[ChandlerJr]

4. "Last week, President Obama broke his campaign commitment"

One thing I used to hate about vinyl records was when the needle stuck in a groove and kept repeating repeating repeating repeating repeating repeating.

[pampango]

5. Our trade deficit is much less with "free trade" countries than with the rest of the world.

Unions are stronger in countries with more "free trade" like Canada and European countries.

When a country has regressive taxes, weakened unions, a shattered safety net, a very ineffective health care system and a deregulated corporate environment (like the US with its highly inequitable distribution of income), it seems like "free trade" is a cause of many problems.

When a country (or a continent in Europe's case) has high/progressive taxes, strong unions, an effective safety net, national health care and effective corporate regulation (resulting in a fairer society with an equitable distribution of income), it seems like "free trade" and relatively open borders are part of being a liberal democracy. In Europe it's the right (particularly the far-right) that fights against open borders and for tariffs. Liberal democracy doesn't particularly interest them.

[TheKentuckian]

9. The Europeans trading with each other is more like interstate trade here than our stupid

free trade with every third world nation in the world.

[pampango]

16. The EU has "free trade" with "Third World" countries like Mexico, Egypt, South Korea, Columbia, Peru

South Africa, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, Algeria, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and the Palestinian Authority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_free_trade_agreements

In addition, the EU no tariffs on any imports from the poorest countries in the world.

"The EU’s trade policy is closely linked to its development policy. The Union has granted duty-free or cut-rate access to its market for most of the imports from developing countries under its generalised system of preferences (GSP). It goes even further for the world’s 49 poorest countries, all of whose exports – with the sole exception of arms – enter the EU duty-free."

http://europa.eu/pol/comm/index_en.htm

I agree with you that the EU has created peace, prosperity and progressive government by allowing countries to trade with each other like they were states rather than the way things were in Europe before the EU and WWII.

[cui bono]

6. But wait.... didn't Obama just say he understands the frustrations of the OWS

movement?

If he does he doesn't give a damn about them.

[Donnachaidh]

15. it's all lip service due to the upcoming election. n/t

[GeorgeGist]

7. It's not a threat ...

it's almost a promise.

[JDPriestly]

8. It's a sad, sad day. These trade agreements are a double-cross.

There have been a lot of them.

The agreements benefit huge corporations and pushy individuals. They hurt millions of Americans.

We need tariffs not trade give-aways.

[sad sally]

10. Another screwing of world workers so the rich can get richer at any expense.

scores of Colombian labor organizers, Afro-Colombians, and human rights activists are murdered every year for trying to boost wages or just hang onto their land (palm oil operations are aggressively cutting down rainforest currently occupied by Afro-Colombians and indigenous people to expand their plantations).

The deal would allow companies that want to sell their goods in the United States to pay zero tariff even as they set up manufacturing in a country where they can hire armed gangs to intimidate or even kill workers who advocate for better working conditions or a union. This is an open invitation to companies to shift jobs overseas to countries where they can operate with impunity. It's so bad that Colombian trade unions oppose the deal along with their U.S. counterparts.

The Panama deal rounds out the greed train with its own investor provisions. The country is one of the most notorious offshore tax havens. Under the agreement, investors will be able to challenge U.S. efforts to crack down on this type of tax shelter -- a huge sop to the very Wall Street financial institutions that are the direct target of the Occupy movement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-hurowitz/obama-free-trade_b_1003846.html?du

[chill_wind]

12. And the so-called protections aren't in there. Pelosi voted against.

re: Colombia-- human rights protections

“If it’s not in the bill, it doesn’t exist,” she said, adding that she “lost … faith” in the deal when it became clear that language would not be included.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/187253-president-gets-win-as-trade-deals-pass

McDermott:

If we believe in workers' rights and we believe in human rights in this place … but when we write a trade agreement for Colombia, we're unwilling to write in the demands for the Colombian workers, that's what's wrong with this and that's why most of us will vote against it,"

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/187175-house-approves-colombia-fta-with-scant-dem-support

[OhioChick]

13. More US jobs soon to go down the shitter n/t

[LiberalAndProud]

14. And it's marketed as a Jobs Initiative.

Why does the phrase "Clear Skies Act" come to mind?

A shit sandwich by any other name is still a shit sandwich. (with apologies to Shakespeare.)

[myrna minx]

17. It's disgusting and outrageous.

:puke: We're suppose to believe that Washington is working on jobs when they do this? Oh yippee - it's bi-partisan - they're bi-partisan in their collusion against the 99%.