However poorly we do it.
Most of our massive trade deficits are with a relatively few Asian (read China) nations, with whom we have no direct FTA.
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 ...
Of course it is. LOL.
These are treaties by any definition used by the Founders and by our constitution. So are bilateral fair trade agreements, which is what I favor over the two to ten thousand page behemoths we call "free" trade agreements.
Treaties require not just a simple Senate majority; they need a 75% vote.
Now look at the votes for NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.
What's wrong with this picture?
This is what we get by allowing our government to play word games. They are called "agreements" for a reason and that's to bypass constitutional due process. Oh, but even suggest we're going to change these "agreements" and the other parties start screaming about "broken treaties."
What about as a percentage of GDP? During our heyday compared to now?
Obfuscation and ridicule are tools used by liberals when they've lost an argument. Please don't stoop to that level. It does not become you.
Congress has the plenary authority to regulate trade with foreign nations, according to the Constitution. It therefore has the authority to approve trade agreements in any fashion it so chooses.
Alsop works to support my argument.
Bottom line is we have traded making things for service jobs. To keep GDP high in a recession, we now have no choice but to boost GDP through government spending as demand for services falls during a recession compared to a demand for goods.
It's either that or admit we're actually in a depression with negative quarterly GDP growth.
And I'll note your selective "outrage"--ad hominem attacks are only permissible by those with whom you agree, eh?
An actual written document which defines a trade relationship with another country is a treaty. Go back and look at the pre-free trade era. Those bilateral trade agreements were approved by a 75% vote in the Senate because they had titles like the US-Japan Trade Treaty.
The first boondoggle was NAFTA. perhaps you are too young to remember the outcry over the vote on that and whether it was legitimate. Clinton and his cohorts rammed it through.
Yet when GW Bush was for pushing Mexican trucking on us, he called NAFTA a treaty which couldn't be violated (paraphrasing but he did use the word "treaty.).
And who gives a hoot what word Bush used? Remember, "smaller" is "larger," right?
And I'll note your selective "outrage"--ad hominem attacks are only permissible by those with whom you agree, eh?"
You have yet to show how free trade agreements benefit the USA. I've been trying to show how they hurt us. You started the sarcasm. I merely parried with my own.
Now come on, show us how NAFTA is helping us today. Can you hear the "giant sucking sound?" No? That's because as McCain said" Those jobs are gone and they aren't coming back."
Tell us how losing 65% of our manufacturing base is a fantastic thing, with more jobs leaving - Korea Bound Baby!
Am I a bit of a nationalist? H*ll yes!
Now you are redefining "start." Did you forget your comment #3 already?
If I feel like "showing" something, I might . . . maybe when you stop making crap up.
Alsop works to support my argument.
Alsop?
Bottom line is we have traded making things for service jobs.
That's true. Still doesn't answer my question.
If they are locked out of the US market they might.
I advocate for trading freely (no import duties, currency schemes, etc) with nations that will do the same, and cutting out the rest.
Whoops. Not quite correct but close. Reagan was in favor of a North American common market and reduced tariffs - BETWEEN CANADA AND THE US! Mexico was not a part and parcel and Reagan would have disagreed with that. In 1988, we had the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, NOT NAFTA.
GHW Bush was the NAFTA freak who brought Mexico in and that was so he could reward all his big-business buddies with cheap labor. NAFTA cancelled the US-Canada Agreement.
That is a pipe dream. We are growing more irrelevant every day we keep spending more than we take in.
If we locked out China and/or India, our store shelves would be bare.
If it's true, you've answered your question.
Government spending, consumer spending, and service industry combined now accounts for a large portion of our GDP. Production of goods is now a wedge in the GDP pie chart.
However poorly we do it.
Most of our massive trade deficits are with a relatively few Asian (read China) nations, with whom we have no direct FTA.
How large a wedge now? How large a wedge in the past? Why no answer?
You have another solution you'd care to offer?
Not only was NAFTA Reagan’s idea, he envisioned a larger FTAA. He also jump-started the Uruguay Round, which led to the creation of the WTO. Whoops, yourself.
I get it. You're a history revisionist. Reagan did an agreement with Canada. Reagan was not in office when this was ditched for NAFTA, during GHW Bush's admin.
But sorry, I don't play with revisionists. See ya.
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