Sen. Max Baucus, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Administration are united in supporting approval of the Bush-negotiated Korea Free Trade Agreement.
Standing in opposition are trade unions in Korea and anyone who opposes propping up the U.S. beef industry (which should be anyone concerned about climate change).
There will be a hearing on the deal in the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday.
Please make sure to let your Senators and Representatives know how you feel about the deal (known as KORUS FTA), after you take the time to read about it below.
Here's a 3-page .pdf on the deal put out by the White House:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
Page 2 touts the benefits to the beef industry.
With apologies to my many friends in the industry, I think the objective data shows that supporting expansion of the beef industry is tantamount to supporting climate change, as has been well documented for years. For me, that's enough to oppose the deal.
But there are many more reasons, as explained by the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions:
Why We Oppose the KORUS FTA
1. KCTU has great concerns about the bilateral and regional FTAs which are currently expanding in number across the world. We believe that the analysis that FTAs are bad for some industries while good for others is a somewhat narrow perspective. This is because they reduce or greatly remove the ability of governments from relatively less developed countries to pursue independent policies to meet economic and social needs and sustainable social and economic development. In addition while the provisions of FTAs systematically strengthen the rights and privileges of corporations they do not include provisions which support the democratic control of foreign investors.
2. The KORUS FTA privilege the rights and benefits of transnational corporations over the rights of workers, consumers and the general public. We believe that the proposed KOR-US Free Trade Agreement is harmful not only for the Korean workers and working families, but for the workers and working families in the U.S. as well, since the KORUS FTA follows the ‘failed model’ of NAFTA. And it is highly likely that the agreement will have huge negative impacts on small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) in the two countries, damaging the manufacturing base and worsening already unsecure employment.
3. The KORUS FTA will systematically encourage offshoring, or global outsourcing. The “Rule-of-Origin” provisions of KORUS FTA allow up to 65% foreign content of the value of vehicles eligible for tariff-free treatment, using the Net-Cost- Method. Thus, the agreement will encourage transnational corporations(TNCs) to outsource their production to neighboring low-wage countries such as China and Mexico. This will eventually result in the breakdown of domestic manufacturing industry and unsecure employment.
4. The experience of NAFTA demonstrates the negative impact of FTA on employment. We know that when NAFTA was being negotiated, the US, Canada and Mexican governments made many promises to their citizens - such as creation of jobs and better living standards, just as the Korean and US governments are promising today. However, 15 years of NAFTA has shown that the reality is far from what was promised. In the course of 15 years, NAFTA has eliminated more than 1 million jobs in just the US and increased irregular part-time jobs particularly in service sectors, which pay 23% to 77% less than the jobs that were replaced.
5. Like the NAFTA, KORUS FTA also includes the notorious Investor-State Dispute provision in the Investment Chapter, which ensure private foreign investors to demand cash payment from governments for actions that could be seen to violate privileges endowed by the agreement. This is one representative example of the way KORUS FTA dramatically protect the rights of industries in a way that undermines the ability of governments to carry out policies for public interest including public services, the environment, public health and education.
6. The American subprime mortgage crisis in 2007-09 demonstrates once more the danger of financial deregulation and urgent need of financial control. However, KORUS FTA allows all types of financial instruments including financial derivatives which are considered to trigger financial crisis in 2007-09. It will limit governments from prudently regulating financial sectors to avoid another economic crisis.
7. The KORUS FTA will be also harmful for the sustainable relations between two nations. Many ordinary people in the South Korea believe that the US government put political pressure for getting more economic interests and concessions from the South Korean government during the FTA negotiations, even using very difficult times for South Korea when military tension of Korean peninsula highly increased in 2010. Therefore it will rise ‘anti-US sentiment’ and result in dealing negative impact on Korea US relations. We are also concerned that the agreement will promote confrontation between geographical forces and result in increasing military tension in our region between US-Japan-South Korea and China-North Korea-Russia.
8. Therefore we call upon elected representatives, citizens and workers to oppose the KORUS FTA. We do not need NAFTA-style FTA. We need more equitable and fairer trade agreement to create decent jobs and ensure the authority of each government to carry out policies to meet social and economic needs.
Trade unionists took to the streets in Korea last week to register their objections to this deal. The least we can do is call or email our Senators and Members of Congress.
Thank you.