Nebraska farm group rips Korea free-trade pact, says it has harmed U.S. economy
Source: Omaha World Herald
By Russell Hubbard
The Nebraska Farmers Union joined with trade activists Monday to oppose a free-trade pact with Korea that the group says has hurt the U.S. economy.
John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said on a conference call hosted by Public Citizen Global Trade Watch that exports to South Korea have fallen and imports from South Korea have increased since the United States and the Asian nation agreed to a free-trade pact in 2012.
Public Citizen said the free-trade pact is the model for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement the U.S. is negotiating with 11 Asian and South American countries.
We are not having a fair opportunity to be able to sell our products into other economies, but we have the welcome mat out to competition coming into our economy, Hansen said.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.omaha.com/money/nebraska-farm-group-rips-korea-free-trade-pact-says-it/article_9f015a95-b8bb-5210-9b39-aeb655d6b93e.html
Fred Sanders
(23,946 posts)In good news, Korean and World farm land prices, in US dollars, has plummeted.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)That is one of the problems with trade agreements. It is claimed that the Chinese also manipulate the currency so that we end up with a huge trade deficit.
We need to find a way to take care of our trade deficit and our currency problems BEFORE entering into any more trade agreements.
Our trade agreements do not take into account the fact that not only do individuals approach managing money differently, but populations do. One country may have a population that is very nationalisticl and stubbornly tries to buy locally made products. Another -- and America is a good example -- is looking for bargains and could care less where products are made. If you have a trade agreement between a country in which people buy locally and a country in which people buy what is offered at the lowest price, the trade agreement's terms may sound reasonable, but the balance of trade result will be a problem for the manufacturers and producers in one of the countries.
And so, we need to look even deeper beyond the fact of the currency valuations at the reasons for those valuations and whether, considering what those reasons may be, it is at all advisable to enter into trade agreements that bind us into certain trade policies for the long term. I think we need a lot of flexibility in our trade policy, and these agreements do not permit that.
These issues are complex. I am not an economist, but I like to think about them and apply the experience I have had in my life as I do so.
So I am open to reading critiques of my opinions on these issues.
Here is something to consider when thinking about how different nationalities or nations may have different approaches to basic economic issues, differences derived from their histories as well as other factors.
It seems that in Germany, people prefer to save money in banks rather than to buy stocks, etc. So Germany now offers a negative interest rate. Interesting article.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21631140-interest-rates-turn-negative-some-worse-nothing
lark
(23,182 posts)He says free trade (what an oxymoron that is) increases employment here and there, but that obviously hasn't happened with any of these trade deals to date. We may make more money that goes straight to the top, but where is the benefit for workers, or the environment? Hint - there is none and it'd be nice for someone pushing free trade to actually have to answer that question. Of course, the msm would never bother to ask that question, they too generally speaking, only care for the 1%.
"Free Trade" is as much an oxymoron as is the phrase "Right to Work" or "Citizens United" or "Americans for Prosperity" or any of those other Riech-Wing deceptions!
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)Actually, the massive farm subsidies in the US lower the cost of farm exports to the point where farmers from other countries cannot compete.
Now the farmers want subsidies plus price protection to the detriment of poor and hungry people. The profit margins must be maintained at 50% !!!
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)imported. I don't think the "farmers from other countries" are having trouble competing.
When you get out of season fruits and vegetables, where do you think they come from?
Ours comes from South America. Mangoes, papaya, not grown very much in the US, but virtually always available in our supermarkets.
I do not understand this sentence: Now the farmers want subsidies plus price protection to the detriment of poor and hungry people.
Are you talking about poor and hungry people in the US or in other countries? And what is your link to support your statement that farmers' profit margins are at 50%?
I don't understand your post.
Do we have a trade surplus in farm commodities? Our overall trade balance is in the negative. Is that not the case for farm commodities.
Do you have some links to back up this information?
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)http://www.ictsd.org/bridges-news/bridges/news/canada-initiates-wto-dispute-proceedings-against-us-farm-subsidies
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/nov/27/farming-subsidies-distort-advantages-food-insecurity
Farm subsidies are corporate welfare for Coagra and Archer Daniels Midland et al. They depress agricultural markets from poor countries and drive many farmers out of business thus making those countries dependent upon exports from the US. Many poor and hungry in the developing world fall through the cracks.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)And the information in these articles confirms my belief that trade should be negotiated product by product, country by country.
We need the food subsidies because if we did not have them, a lot of people in America would not be able to afford the food they need.
We should let other countries decide whether they want to import our food and if they want to export food to us, we should be able to bargain freely without trade agreements, based on market conditions, for the food we want or do not want to import.
Another reason to oppose this attempt to establish one set of rules to govern imports and exports.
Each country should decide for itself what trade policy it wants and negotiate with other countries according to its needs.
These broad trade agreements are not good for any of us. They only make the people who negotiate them feel important.
Judging from the amount of foreign produce in the stores I shop in, we are importing more than enough cheap food from other countries.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)The problem is that when China subsidizes their industries, their products become cheaper and costs manufacturing jobs in the US. In the San Francisco bay area, a lot of plastic injection molding companies have gone out of business because the Chinese plastic is dumped into the market.
WTO simply levels the playing field.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)A libertarian would say let the market decide.
My view is that we should let our democracy, our Congress, our people decide which products we want to import, and which we do not want to import.
Bilateral agreements on tariffs are cumbersome, but in my view probably the only way to work toward fair trade.
The so-called free trade we have now allows big corporations to manipulate things like currency, the use of tax havens, the avoidance or ignoring of regulations including environmental regulations to the detriment of everyone in the world.
By entering into the trade agreements we have, we have relinquished our ability to leverage the fact of our large market for the good of the world market and our own country. But people in other countries suffer too from the fact that we so readily import the cheap goods they produce at low wages.
I think also that we need to work hard to improve education, social policies, pensions, etc. in our own country before we start trading without restrictions or with unenforceable and impractical restrictions on countries that have other education, social, pension, healthcare, etc. policies. We have a lot of work to do here to prepare our children to compete in the world market against people who are willing to work for pennies on the dollar.
So, it is not at all that I am a libertarian. It is quite the contrary. I think that the free market advocates are the libertarians. We should reserve our sovereign right to make decisions about the import of products from other countries.
And the trade courts really are an abomination. Elizabeth Warren explains that very well.
Heres how ISDS (Investor State Dispute Settlement, i.e., the trade courts) would work: Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge that regulation in a US court.
But with ISDS, the company could skip the US courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators. If the multinational company won, the ruling couldnt be challenged in US courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions and even billions of dollars in damages.
If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldnt employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Really.
And if the tilt toward giant corporations wasnt clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, giant corporations. So if a Vietnamese company with US operations wanted to challenge our refusal to import a dangerous chemical, it could use ISDS. But if an American labor union or human rights group believed Vietnam was allowing Vietnamese companies to pay slave wages in violation of trade commitments, the American labor group would have to make its case in the Vietnamese courts and if an environmental group thought the Vietnamese company was dumping waste in their rivers in violation of the new trade agreement, they would have to go to a Vietnamese court as well. In other words, the great deal for corporations is only for corporations everyone else is left out.
I am quoting from a letter from Elizabeth Warren's Warren for Senate campaign. I received this in an e-mail. I do not have a link. But it explains the problem with the trade court very well.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)(cost us at least one
US Senate seat)
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Maybe it's time to change. More raw grain and raw beef for domestic use instead of depending on export only. But do not feed Americans the 'export quality' meat and grain.
Though Korean leaders lifted a five-year ban on U.S. beef imports in 2008, some consumers have continued to have health concerns over the potential for mad cow disease and the use of growth additives in cattle feed.