Congress Is Said to Move Closer to Approval on Three Stalled Trade Accords

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Bloomberg

Congress moved closer to approving much-delayed trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama as a Senate panel agreed to begin reviewing the deals, according to people familiar with the plans.

The Senate Finance Committee intends to consider the accords and an extension of aid to workers displaced by foreign competition, according to the people, who spoke today on condition of anonymity after being briefed on talks between lawmakers and the Obama administration.

Republicans in Congress balked today at attaching the worker aid to the U.S.-Korea deal as proposed by the administration, creating a potential obstacle, the people said.

Obama reworked the three free-trade agreements that his predecessor, George W. Bush, made with the three nations in response to concerns among Democrats on issues such as labor rights. The administration has been pushing to get the deals approved by Congress before a recess in August.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/congress-is-said-to-move-closer-to-approval-on-three-stalled-trade-accords.html

[placton]

1. heyy! more NAFTA screw jobs in the offing!

Wonder how many US jobs will go to these new "partners"?

[lib2DaBone]

2. Please don't do us any favors...

Let me guess. Large containers of cheap Korean goods will be allowed to flood into the United States while the corporations pay no taxes.

What few jobs we have remaining will be sent there along with any technology we have left.

Please DON"T HELP US any more. We can't afford it.

[Freddie Stubbs]

5. If no one has jobs, no one will have money to buy Korean goods

Would the Koreans want that?

[Chan790]

7. Um, yeah. (Too obvious of a question.)

The KorUS trade agreement is actually a screw job for Americans and the Koreans love it. I've been dragged to and sat through enough KEIa meetings and conferences to know that much.

[Freddie Stubbs]

9. So, Korea's plan is to ruin all of the good-paying American jobs so that

Americans cannot buy Korean goods?

[Chan790]

11. No.

Korea's plan is to take all of the good-paying American jobs so they don't need us anymore. Duh!!!!!

[pampango]

10. "cheap Korean goods"? South Koreans make as much as Europeans. We can't compete with that?

Not only is the per capita income of South Koreans the same as Europeans, their distribution of that income (Gini of 31.4) is almost as good as that of the EU (31.0). Both compare very favorably to our horrendous Gini of 45.

South Korea: GDP per capita PPP: $30,200| (2010 est.); Gini index 31.4 (2009)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_eu">GDP per capita US $30,388 (PPP) (2010); Gini index 31.0

[brentspeak]

12. Spare us the misinformation

Many factory workers in South Korean aren't "Korean" at all -- they're imported foreign workers who work for just a few cents/hour. Korea ships their migrant workers in from Uzbekistan, India, Vietnam...and China. When finished working their 16-hour shifts, they get bussed back to their one-room apartments in sardine-like conditions somewhere out-of-sight around Seoul. They are the ones who will be taking the bulk of what's left of US-based large-scale manufacturing jobs.

[midnight]

3. "The Senate Finance Committee intends to consider the accords and an extension of aid to workers

displaced by foreign competition." Nice that those who have jobs will consider compensated those whose jobs they negotiate away....

[corpseratemedia]

4. we'll all be living in hotels...

if we're lucky

govt. selling it's own people down the drain

anyone who votes for these trade jobs agreements should be primaried

we are in this desperate state because of these job giveaways

[JJW]

6. How many millions of US jobs will we lose this time?

Shame on you, Barack Obama.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. The Korean Trade Agreement is expected to create 70,000 additional U.S. jobs:

http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/blog/2011/june/ask-ambassador-us-korea-trade-agreements-and-jobs

[brentspeak]

13. Wrong. The US will lose at least 159,000 jobs from the S.Korea pact alone

http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/free_trade_agreement_with_korea_will_cost_U.S._jobs/