Obama forgot to mention: His S. Korean trade deal cost the USA jobs

[brentspeak]

In an earlier State of the Union address, Obama pushed for the KORUS "free trade" deal, promising it would provide American jobs. This is what actually happened:

http://www.epi.org/publication/trade-pacts-korus-trans-pacific-partnership/

No Jobs from Trade Pacts: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Could Be Much Worse than the Over-Hyped Korea Deal

By Robert E. Scott | July 18, 2013

President Obama and his predecessors have frequently claimed that free trade agreements (FTAs) and other trade deals will lead to growing exports and domestic job creation. The president is currently negotiating two massive new FTAs that are likely to result in increased outsourcing and growing job losses, especially in the manufacturing sector. This paper reviews recent data on trade with South Korea after the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) took effect, and on trade flows after other free trade agreements. It concludes:

snip

When the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement was completed in 2010, President Obama said that it would increase U.S. goods exports by “$10 billion to $11 billion,” supporting “70,000 American jobs from increased goods exports alone” (The White House 2010).1 He based this claim on estimates from the U.S. International Trade Commission that tariff cuts alone in KORUS would stimulate U.S. exports to South Korea, supporting the president’s goals of doubling U.S. exports in five years, and adding 1 million new manufacturing jobs.

Things are not turning out the way the president predicted. KORUS took effect March 15, 2012. In the year after the agreement took effect (April 2012 to March 2013), U.S. domestic exports to South Korea (of goods made in the United States) fell $3.5 billion, compared with the same period in the previous year, a decline of 8.3 percent. In the same 12-month period, imports from South Korea (which the administration consistently declines to discuss) increased $2.3 billion, an increase of 4.0 percent, and the bilateral U.S. trade deficit with South Korea increased $5.8 billion, a whopping 39.8 percent. Estimates for 2013 suggest no reversal in these trends, as discussed later in this paper.

The administration is now negotiating a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that could include more than a dozen nations in the Asia-Pacific region (Office of the United States Trade Representative 2013d) including Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea (Hyun, Yeon-cheol and Jeong-hun 2013).2 Recently, China said that it was studying the possibility of joining the TPP talks (Bankok Post 2013). Many members of the proposed agreement have long histories of currency manipulation (Scott 2013b), dumping, and other unfair trade practices that have dramatically increased U.S. trade deficits and job losses, and the agreement could sharply curtail the ability of the United States to challenge these practices.3 The TPP would significantly increase the threat that rapidly growing trade deficits and job losses in the United States would be locked in if the TPP is completed.

[Recursion]

1. Yeah... what's the unemployment level today, compared to before its passage?

If the job growth of the past 4 years is what we're talking about, we should all want more of it.

[brentspeak]

3. "Job growth": Good-paying manufacturing jobs lost

And temporary minimum wage jobs created. Overall wages have decreased.

You're not do very well with the economic propaganda tonight.

[Recursion]

5. Minimum wage jobs are relatively rare

About 1 and a half million people, or 1% of the US labor force, make the Federal minimum wage.

Now, incomes (not wages) have gone down in this period, and that's concerning. We want more broad-based growth like we got in the 1990s, after NAFTA's passage, where income gains were seen in all quintiles.

[rhett o rick]

13. I don't know where you live but those around me are out of work. Some have low

paying jobs that have no benefits. The autoworkers have jobs but at a small fraction of their previous wages. I volunteer at a foodbank and many people that have jobs by your definition can't pay rent and buy food. And you know that unemployment records don't reflect the millions that have given up.

The big corps love these "fair trade" agreements. Unless you believe in trickle-down, you should understand that isn't good for the workers.

[Enthusiast]

30. +1 You nailed it.

[sabrina 1]

17. Where are you living? I am in NY and I can tell you that people are no better off job wise

than they were in 2008. Part time jobs for Christmas, yes, people with college degrees working as janitors, IF they are lucky.

And where were all these jobs after NAFTA? Most people I know LOST their jobs and were forced to TRAIN people from other countries to do THEIR jobs before they were laid off.

I want to live where you live!

[Recursion]

19. You definitely don't want to live where I live now

Where I lived in the 90s was DC, which did pretty well.

Part time jobs for Christmas, yes, people with college degrees working as janitors, IF they are lucky.

Well, then BLS tells me where you live is rather unrepresentative of the country as a whole.

And where were all these jobs after NAFTA?

Coastal cities, mostly. But they were definitely being created; just look at the employment numbers in the late 1990s.

[sabrina 1]

22. I HAVE looked, specifically, at jobs in the '90s. People I knew graduated from college and were

bombarded with offers of great jobs in the IT business. It was GREAT. Until a few years later when their jobs were outsourced and they were left wondering 'what happened'?

Where I live is very representative of the country. I was in Ca until two years ago. In Az for two years before that. Same thing.

McDonalds were hiring, Walmart is always hiring.

But real jobs? I invite you to come to NY, Ca or any other coastal area that used to be great place to work, and apply for a job that will provide for your family, with benefits, with a future and then tell me where I live doesn't represent the country as a whole.

Wages are what matters, not 'jobs'. Anyone can get a job at Walmart. And they will be eligible for Welfare. See here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026110877

I know people who have taken these jobs out of desperation. I guess they are part of the 'recovery' stats.

[Enthusiast]

31. +1!

[rhett o rick]

14. They can't handle reality so they make one up. To listen to them, everything is swell. nm

[pa28]

21. Fallacy laden argument.

Facts say we've lost thousands of jobs because of KORUS and our trade deficit with Korea has grown by 50%.

http://billmoyers.com/2015/01/20/sotu-schizophrenia-middle-class-jobs-vs-fast-track-tpp/

[arthritisR_US]

2. You're so right, he is such a lousy piece of crap

[Skittles]

7. question

did you bother to even read what was offered?

[arthritisR_US]

8. I did, thanks for inquiring. nt

[Skittles]

9. and THAT was your response?

don't even bother responding; not necessary

[arthritisR_US]

10. OK. nt

[liberal_at_heart]

4. He is a corporatist, not a populist. So when he stands up and there and pretends to be a

populist it is at the very least disappointing if not down right maddening. Will he veto any bill that cuts SSDI? That's what I want to know.

[emulatorloo]

11. Plus he is Hitler and a communist.

[liberal_at_heart]

16. He is not Hitler and he is far, far, far, far, far from being communist. Neither is he socialist

nor even populist. He is a corporatist Democrat, and the middle class simply cannot afford another 30 years of wage stagnation, cost of living increases, and cuts to social support programs. Was Cromnibus the act of a populist? Cutting pensions, and WIC while guaranteeing banks more tax payer money in case their derivative bets go bad. Will he veto any bill that cuts SSDI or will he reach out in bipartisan effort and cut SSDI to as he likes to say ensure the long term viability of such programs?

[Enthusiast]

32. +1!

[sabrina 1]

18. So what do you think of the OP? Or did you wander into the wrong thread?

[Enthusiast]

33. +1!

[emulatorloo]

36. Been burned by too many BrentSpeak half-truth hatchet jobs in the past.

He has not proven himself to be a reliable source.

[rhett o rick]

29. When people resort to this nonsense it indicates to me that they have noting

of substance to offer the discussion. If you believe that the Pres is being maligned, speak out and defend him. I notice those that are very staunch defenders of the president won't discuss controversial issues like the TPP or fracking. I don't know that applies in this case, but would guess so from your nonsense response. Seem to some that one either worships the president or thinks he compares to Hitler. I might suggest that open-minded people can like some of what the Pres does and not like other things. That's what being a Democrat is all about.

[emulatorloo]

35. The made-up word "corporatist" is DU nonsense knee-jerk jargon.

And carries no more meaning to most people than Freeper knee-jerk jargon.

I am against fracking and don't have enough info on TPP to have a position yet.

FWIW I intended to self delete the post because it didn't communicate well. But screwed up.

[arely staircase]

12. you would make a shitty speechwriter

Nothing personal.

[sabrina 1]

20. All speechwriters are shitty. They may make politicians SOUND good, remember Reagan's

speech writer, made me cry once, but it was all just theater, but what ordinary working class people want is ACTION.

I bet they get paid more than the average worker though.

[C Moon]

24. If you had a job interview, would you focus on the negative side of your career?

A silly post.

[wavesofeuphoria]

26. The State of the Union is a job interview???

[merrily]

38. I know, right?

The SOTU is a report by the POTUS to Congress on the state of this country that the Constitution requires, one imagines so that the Executive Branch and Congress may be better able to govern this country for the benefit of the people who voted them into office, who foot their massive bills and who will have to make voting decisions again, a year or two after each SOTU..

The SOTUS is not a job interview of the POTUS in which it is appropriate for him to say to Congress (and, given broadcasting, to the nation) whatever he thinks makes him look best, even if it is somewhat misleading.

The left used to laugh the right for acting against their own best interests. I am not quite sure at which point we came to admire that unfortunate symptom of successful brainwashing and/or Stockholm syndrome enough to emulate and even surpass them at it. Whenever it was, it was one of several unfortunate developments among rank and file Democrats.

Sorry to be kicking an older thread. I came across it and had intended only to read it, but that was such a jaw dropper.

[pampango]

25. Citing 1st year export numbers proves little. Exports to Mexico were up 20%+ the 1st year of NAFTA.

Exports from the US to Mexico went from $41.6 billion in 1993 to $50.8 billion in 1994. I don't suppose anyone is (or was at the time) using that as an argument that NAFTA was a success.

Some posters here discount the role of NAFTA in the increase in manufacturing jobs and manufacturing wages, as well as the overall decline in poverty and unemployment and the rise in family incomes. The argument seems to go that the negative effects of NAFTA were delayed and did not strike, coincidentally perhaps, until the anointing of Bush as president.

Is there a reason why the positive immediate/short term effects of NAFTA are discounted, while the negative immediate/short term effects of the Korea agreement are proof of its ineffectiveness?

The EU-South Korea trade agreement was effective in 2011 and the EU had a trade surplus with South Korea last year. I don't see why the US cannot do the same. South Korea's per capita GDP is around $33,000 (about the same as the EU's $34,500) compared to our $50,000 and their income equality is much better than ours. We can compete with that.

[woo me with science]

27. K&R

[woo me with science]

28. Corporate purchase of governments = Predation of human lives.

This is the result of corporate money purchasing governments that are supposed to exist of, by, and for the people.

The looting of nations, driving millions into poverty and despair, dismantling of Constitutional protections...

And construction of a ubiquitous, vapid, morally bankrupt propaganda machine to deny what is being done to us and mock the protest of the people.

Oligarchy Theater is a revolting spectacle.

[Enthusiast]

34. Kicked

and recommended a whole bunch!

[woo me with science]

37. kick