Posted on 03/15/2012 4:30:47 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A long-delayed U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement (FTA) that has stirred controversy in both countries took effect on Thursday, although the opposition in Seoul has vowed to renegotiate it if it wins elections this year.
The deal between the world's top economy and Asia's fourth largest will boost trade by billions of dollars and create tens of thousands of jobs, the two sides say, making it one the biggest deals of its kind.
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The pact, which was signed in 2007 and finally approved by both countries in late 2011, immediately eliminates 80 percent of South Korea's duties on U.S. manufactured goods and nearly two-thirds of its duties on U.S. farm products.
In Seoul, shoppers felt the immediate impact, with bottles of Californian wine and citrus fruit flying off the supermarket shelves at up to a 20 percent off less than before.
South Korea is the United States' seventh-largest trading partner and has an economy valued at $1 trillion dollars. The pact's tariff cuts are expected to boost U.S. exports to Korea by $10 billion to $11 billion, helping to support 70,000 jobs.
The agreement mostly negotiated by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush and former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun also opens up more of South Korea's large services market to U.S. companies and has new protections for exporters, investors, and intellectual property rights holders.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
fyi
Well, hey! All those other “free” trade pacts worked out great for us, so why not? /s
Damn Thatcher and Reagan and the horses they rode in on!
We are the free traders in a (mostly) managed trade world.
We’ve signed FTA’s with what, twenty countries? We mostly manage our trade as well.
Correct, but only because we've traded trade deficits for employment and manufacturing deficits. By allowing our manufacturing base to move to Mexico and other "free trade" countries, we now have less to export, lower-paying jobs relative to inflation, and fewer jobs to boot. Hurray for us!
Think China or Russia or India would ever sign a "free" trade agreement with us? Not very likely. A strong nation is one that actually grows, raises mines and makes products. That is real GDP, not fake numbers on a ledger.
Incorrect. Increasing trade deficits are correlated with an expanding economy. That’s just the way it is . . . you can claim that the correlation is not causal, but you cannot claim the opposite of the truth.
Opposite of truth? Here's the truth:
Free trade agreements have changed our economy from one in which a major portion of GDP was from actual production (mining, raising livestock, growing crops, manufacturing), to one in which most of our GDP is derived from financial and other services, plus government spending, with much lower REAL production.
Free trade agreements are a form of wealth distribution but between nations where the commodity being traded is human labor. We want cheap goods, so we export our jobs to comparatively low-wage-paying nations, then import their products with low or no tariffs.
Bottom line is that every free trade agreement we've signed has resulted in lower actual production in the US and fewer jobs in all sectors of production industry. We get a gain in service jobs in return. We've also gotten tons and tons of imported labor and a major illegal alien problem which exploded after NAFTA was passed.
Why is Germany the strongest economy in the Euro-zone? To quote Merckel when she was asked by Britain's PM why Germany's economy was so strong: "Because we still MAKE things."
The truth is that production of goods makes for a strong economy. Destroy your actual and real production and you will eventually destroy the country.
We produce more services and we spend more via government PER CAPITA. We produce far less real product PER CAPITA. As a result, we export less and import more.
All we need is a few more "free" trade agreements and soon we won't produce anything at all. "Made in America" is going the way of the Dodo.
Question for you: Would you say John McCain was correct when he told an audience during his campaign in 2008 that "those jobs aren't coming back?"
Do you believe that free trade agreements are treaties between nations as defined by the constitution?
So, in other words, 80% of a baseball is better than 50% of a basketball . . . when complaining about size.
Because it’s worked so well with Communist China.
Is that a trick question? LOL
What about communists? Did the S. Koreans turn red when I wasn’t looking?
I prefer your condemnation to your suckin' sympathy.
Baby, good for nuthin' is good enough for me.
--Bobby Bare
Our GDP is now supported primarily by government spending, consumer spending and the ratio of investment by industry has very nearly flipped from nearly 7:3 goods to services, to 3.5:6.5 goods to services - almost a complete reversal.
Service products depend heavily on a healthy financial system to provide jobs. The world financial system is a mess.
But EVERYONE needs goods. Look at every country on the planet with a relatively healthy economy in this recession and you'll see their GDP is based first on production of goods, not services.
Furthermore, government spending is now a huge portion of our GDP. This is why they spend. If they didn't, we'd be seeing negative growth. Four quarters of that spells the "D" word and government is deathly afraid of that word.
I love FR econ threads. I learn so much: small is larger than large, increasing price increases demand, the government loans me money to buy stuff . . . and that is all in the past week.
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