As Korean President Addresses Congress Today, First Year of Korea Free Trade Agreement Data Shows U.S. Exports Down, Trade Deficit with Korea Up

After First Year of U.S.-Korea FTA, U.S. Exports to Korea Down 10 Percent, Imports from Korea Up and Deficit With Korea Swells 37 Percent, Contradicting Obama Promises of U.S. Export and Job Growth

Just-released government trade data, covering the first year of implementation of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), shows a remarkable decline in U.S. exports to Korea and a rise in imports from Korea, provoking a dramatic trade deficit increase that defies the Obama administration’s promises that the pact would expand U.S. exports and create U.S. jobs, Public Citizen said today.

The coincidence of the dismal trade data coming out just before the Korean president’s Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress can only heighten attention to the gap between the administration’s promises and the outcomes of its trade agreements.

“The Korea pact’s damaging outcomes being the opposite of the administration’s promises will certainly complicate the administration’s current efforts to use the same claims about export expansion to persuade Congress to delegate away its constitutional trade authority or to build support for the administration’s next trade deal, a massive 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) based on the same model,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

U.S. export growth to countries with NAFTA-style pacts like the U.S.-Korea FTA has been particularly lackluster; growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not FTA partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 38 percent over the past decade.

In contrast to the Obama administration’s promise that the U.S.-Korea FTA would mean “more exports, more jobs,” U.S. goods exports to Korea have dropped 10 percent (a $4.2 billion decrease) under the Korea FTA’s first year, in comparison to the year before FTA implementation. U.S. imports from Korea have climbed 2 percent (a $1.3 billion increase). The U.S. trade deficit with Korea has swelled 37 percent (a $5.5 billion increase). The ballooning trade deficit indicates the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.

“Most Americans will not be shocked that another trade agreement has increased our trade deficit, because they know that these NAFTA-style deals are losers, but anger toward the politicians who keep supporting these deals is soaring,” said Wallach. “The question is why any member of Congress would buy the same tired promises that once again have proven false and cede to the administration’s demands that Congress give away its constitutional authority over trade to allow the administration to Fast Track into effect yet another deal, TPP, that will increase our trade deficit and cost U.S. jobs.”

The decline in U.S. exports under the Korea FTA contributed to an overall disappointing U.S. export performance in 2012, placing the United States far behind Obama’s stated goal to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014. At the sluggish 2012 export growth rate of 2 percent, the United States will not achieve the president’s goal until 2032, 18 years behind schedule.

“The sorry Korea FTA numbers beg the question: How can the administration call for a rebirth of American manufacturing and job growth while pushing the TPP, a sweeping deal that would expand the failed Korea FTA model to low-wage countries like Vietnam, ban Buy American provisions and offshore tens of thousands more U.S. jobs,” said Wallach.

Many of the sectors that the Obama administration promised would be the biggest beneficiaries of the Korea FTA have actually been some of the deal’s largest losers:

• U.S. pork exports to Korea have declined 24 percent under the first year of the FTA relative to the year before FTA implementation.
• U.S. beef exports have fallen 8 percent.
• U.S. poultry exports have plunged 41 percent.

The U.S. deficit with Korea in autos and auto parts increased 16 percent in the first year of the FTA. U.S. auto imports from Korea have surged by more than $2.5 billion under the FTA’s first year. FTA proponents have shamelessly touted “gains” in U.S. auto exports without revealing that this increase totaled just $130 million, with fewer than 1,000 additional U.S. automobiles sold in Korea relative to the 1.3 million Korean cars sold here in 2012.

Read additional analysis of the government data on U.S. trade with Korea under the U.S.-Korea FTA.

Don't Be Fooled by Data Tricks: The Case of the Dueling Korea FTA Press Releases

On Friday we sent out a press release exposing the export-chilling, deficit-expanding, job-eroding track record of the Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on the first anniversary of its implementation.  That same day, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) sent out a press release singing the export-boosting praises of the Korea FTA.  What could explain this riddle of dueling press releases?   

Some basic data tricks.  USTR’s press release relied on five sleights of hand to gussy up the unsightly Korea FTA data and generate some misleading, albeit rose-colored, conclusions:

• Cherry-picking.  Overall U.S. exports to Korea have fallen 9 percent under the FTA.  USTR first tries to get around this inconvenient fact by simply “disregarding” particularly large exports that declined (e.g. corn) so as to produce a sanitized illusion of an increase in “total U.S. exports.” (By “total U.S. exports” they mean “some U.S. exports, excluding particularly important export sectors that would contradict our argument of a total export increase.”)  USTR saves most of its FTA-touting words for some narrow sectors that were export-increasing exceptions to the export-falling rule of the Korea FTA.  For example, while total U.S. agricultural exports to Korea have plunged 29% under the FTA, USTR spotlighted export rises in specific agricultural products like soybeans and grape juice.  Such “soybean-picking” avoids the essential question: what has been the total effect of the Korea FTA on U.S. exports and jobs?  The inconvenient answer: a loss. 

• Using the wrong timeframe.  The USTR press release acted as if the Korea FTA was in effect for the full 2012 calendar year, though it only took effect on March 15, 2012 (hence the timing of the press release).  The agency errantly compared the full year of data for 2011 with the full year from 2012, claiming the results to be due to the Korea FTA.  This timeframe starts and ends too soon.  An accurate assessment of the Korea FTA’s legacy would begin the data comparison with the first full month in which the FTA was actually in effect: April 2012 (vs. April 2011).  Also, the timeframe would not stop with the end of 2012, but with the most recent month for which we have data: January 2013.  Perhaps USTR decided to omit January because it marked the highest monthly U.S.-Korea trade deficit on record.  Whatever their reasons, the timeframe mistake skews each starry-eyed data point that USTR presents in its release. 

• Ignoring imports.  As per usual, USTR has examined only one side of the trade equation.  The word “imports” doesn’t appear once in their press release.  But in the same way that exports are associated with job opportunities, imports are associated with lost job opportunities when they outstrip exports, as dramatically seen under the Korea FTA.  Under the deal, the U.S. trade deficit with Korea has swelled 30 percent, costing tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.  By ignoring rising imports, USTR claims a gain for auto manufacturers under the FTA.  But while U.S. auto exports to Korea have increased by $65 million under the deal, U.S. auto imports from Korea have ballooned by $2.3 billion.  The resulting 18 percent increase in the U.S. auto trade deficit with Korea is a net loss for U.S. automakers, not a net gain. 

• Counting foreign-made “exports.”  USTR once again inflates the value of U.S. exports by counting goods that actually are made overseas – not by U.S. workers.  These “re-exports” are goods made elsewhere that are shipped through the United States en route to a final destination.  To assess what the Korea FTA has actually meant for U.S. jobs, our release eliminated re-exports in calculating the 9 percent drop in U.S.-made exports to Korea under the deal. 

• Forgetting about inflation.  It appears that USTR forgot to adjust its numbers for inflation, an omission that artificially magnifies the value of U.S. exports in 2012 relative to 2011.  All of the data contained in our press release is properly inflation-adjusted to show a truer picture of U.S. exports under the Korea FTA – a picture that unfortunately does not look too pretty without all of USTR’s cropping and airbrushing.    

If we want trade policy that behooves the majority, rather than an expansion of the damaging Korea FTA model, then we have to look honestly at the Korea FTA track record.  If instead we twist the data to make mistakes look like successes, we are binding ourselves to the replication of failure.  

On Anniversary of U.S.-Korea FTA Implementation, U.S. Exports Down 9 Percent, Imports from Korea Up and Deficit With Korea Swells 30 Percent, Undermining Obama Export and Job Growth Goals

Though U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Outcomes Are Abysmal, Obama Pushes for Trans-Pacific and European Agreements Based on Same Model

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The actual outcomes of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that took effect one year ago, March 15, have been exactly the opposite of what the Obama administration promised, Public Citizen said today. Despite government data once again demonstrating the damage caused by yet another “trade” agreement based on the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Obama administration is trying to sell massive Trans-Pacific and European agreements based on the same model with the same false promises.

U.S. export growth to countries with pacts like the U.S.-Korea FTA has been particularly lackluster; growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not FTA partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 38 percent over the past decade. In contrast to the Obama administration’s promise that the U.S.-Korea FTA would mean “more exports, more jobs,” U.S. goods exports to Korea have dropped 9 percent (a $3.2 billion decrease) since the Korea FTA took effect, in comparison to the same months in the year before FTA implementation. U.S. imports from Korea have climbed 2 percent (an $800 million increase). The U.S. trade deficit with Korea has swelled 30 percent (a $4 billion increase). The January data from the U.S. International Trade Commission show that the U.S. trade deficit with Korea skyrocketed 81 percent above December’s level, topping $2.4 billion – the largest monthly U.S. trade deficit with Korea on record. The ballooning trade deficit indicates the loss of tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.

“I suspect that most Americans are likely to be angry with the politicians who got us into another one of these NAFTA-style deals, rather than surprised at the damaging outcome. Polls show that majorities of U.S. independent, Democratic and GOP voters consistently oppose these deals because they think they are bad for their families and the American economy,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “The Obama administration is inviting the public to focus on the debacle of its Korea Free Trade Agreement by using the same failed claims to push a Trans-Pacific FTA with 10 Asian and Latin American nations that is literally based on the Korea FTA text.”

The decline in U.S. exports under the Korea FTA contributed to an overall disappointing U.S. export performance in 2012, placing the United States far behind Obama’s stated goal to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014. At the sluggish 2012 export growth rate of 2 percent, the United States will not achieve the president’s goal until 2032, 18 years behind schedule.

“The data show that these Obama administration-supported FTAs are undermining the national goals set by the president of boosting our exports, reviving U.S. manufacturing and creating American jobs,” said Wallach. “This kind of data makes everyone wonder just why the administration keeps pushing so-called ‘trade’ agreements like the Korea FTA, and now the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that facilitate offshoring, ban Buy American provisions and erode manufacturing jobs, utterly contradicting the president’s domestic agenda.”

Many of the sectors that the Obama administration promised would be the biggest beneficiaries of the Korea FTA have actually been some of the deal’s largest losers. U.S. pork exports to Korea have declined 18 percent under the FTA relative to the same months in the year before FTA implementation, while beef exports have fallen 9 percent and poultry exports have plunged 41 percent. While U.S. auto exports to Korea have increased 7 percent under the FTA, U.S. auto imports from Korea have surged 17 percent, causing an 18 percent rise in the U.S. auto trade deficit with Korea.

Read additional analysis of the government data on U.S. trade with Korea under the U.S.-Korea FTA.

U.S. Trade Deficit with Korea Soars to Highest Point on Record under FTA

The just-released monthly trade data from the U.S. International Trade Commission reveals an expanding U.S. trade deficit with the world as U.S. exports dropped and imports rose in January, relative to December of last year.  But the deficit picture is even starker for U.S. trade with Korea under the tenth month of the Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA).  While U.S. goods imports from all countries rose 3% in January, U.S. imports from Korea soared 18%.  While U.S. goods exports to the world slipped 6%, exports to Korea fell 8%.  And while the U.S. trade deficit with the world climbed 21% in January, the deficit with Korea jumped 81%.  January's U.S. trade deficit with Korea topped $2.4 billion -- the largest monthly deficit with Korea on record.  In short, another month of trade with Korea under the Korea FTA has produced another month of remarkably large job-displacing trade imbalances. 

The U.S.-Korea trade imbalances of recent months are remarkable not just in comparison with most other U.S. trade partners, but in comparison to how U.S. trade with Korea looked before the Korea FTA took effect in March of last year.  In nine of the ten first months of the FTA's implementation, including the most recent month, U.S. exports to Korea fell below pre-FTA levels (relative to the same months in the prior year), spelling an overall 9% fall in exports under the FTA.  In six of those ten months, including the most recent month, U.S. imports from Korea exceeded pre-FTA levels, yielding a 2% increase in imports under the FTA.  As a result, the U.S. trade deficit with Korea under the FTA's first ten months is 30% -- or $4 billion -- larger than in the same months before the deal took effect.  The graph below summarizes this none-too-pretty picture for U.S. jobs, depicting the difference between Korea trade levels under the FTA (April 2012-January 2013) and those occurring in the same months one year earlier, before the FTA took effect.  

As Obama administration trade negotiators meet in Singapore this week to hash out the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive expansion of the Korea FTA model, they should take a gander at this data. If the Obama administration hopes to fulfill its promise of a rebirth in U.S. manufacturing, a restoration of middle-class wages, and a recovery of decent jobs, it cannot afford to sign another sweeping FTA that expands upon the Korea FTA's sorry track record.  

Obama's Export Promise Falls 18 Years Behind Schedule as Exports Decline under FTAs

USITC Trade Data Shows Obama Goal of Doubling Exports Is Even More Remote Relative to Census Bureau Data, Due in Part to Falling Exports under FTAs with Korea, Colombia and Panama

The Obama administration’s attempt to tout the decline in the overall U.S. trade deficit for 2012 as a trade policy success diverted from the three most critical trends that the annual data revealed:

• The drop in the overall trade deficit represented an increase in U.S. oil exports and a decrease in oil imports. However, the U.S. deficit in goods excluding oil actually rose six percent in 2012 to $628 billion, the largest non-oil U.S. trade deficit in the last five years. The U.S. trade deficit with China (even with oil included) broke all past records, topping $321 billion.

• Friday’s 2012 annual trade data from the U.S. Census Bureau, despite using inflated figures that count “re-exports” – goods not produced by U.S. workers, showed that President Obama’s goal of doubling U.S. exports is seriously lagging. Data released over the weekend by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) reveals that Obama’s export growth goal is even more remote - at the sluggish 2012 export growth rate, we will not achieve the president’s goal until 2032, 18 years behind schedule. After removing foreign-made “re-exports” from the Census figures, the USITC data shows that U.S.-made goods exports in 2012 were $210 billion (more than 13 percent) below what Census reported.

• U.S. exports were particularly disappointing to the three countries with “free trade” agreements (FTAs) that the Obama administration pushed to passage in 2011. Under the Korea, Colombia and Panama FTAs, which took effect in 2012, combined U.S. exports to the three countries fell four percent relative to the same months of 2011. Despite this, the Obama administration is pushing an 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) FTA based on the same model of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The TPP pact includes Vietnam, the low-wage alternative to China for manufacturing outsourcing.

Goal of Doubling Exports off Track

In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama set a goal to double exports over the following five years. With two years left, the United States should be 60 percent of the way toward achieving this goal. Instead, the 2012 Census data, despite being inflated by the inclusion of foreign-made re-exports, showed that we are just 37 percent of the way toward Obama's export growth goal, with U.S. goods exports growing at less than one-sixth of the promised pace in 2012. The USITC data, reporting only U.S.-made exports, shows that we are even farther from doubling exports and, under the sluggish 2012 export growth rate of two percent, will not achieve the president’s goal until 2032, 18 years behind schedule. The picture would be worse were it not for the 2010 export growth spurt – an anomalous and predictable rebound after U.S. exports plunged in 2009 amid the global recession.

 

U.S. Exports to Korea Plummet 10 Percent under Obama-Backed FTA

The new USITC data shows that under the FTAs that took effect in 2012 with Korea, Colombia and Panama, combined U.S. exports to the three countries have actually fallen four percent relative to the same months of 2011. U.S. goods exports to Korea declined by 10 percent (more than $3.1 billion) in comparison to 2011 levels for the same months. The U.S. trade deficit with Korea grew 26 percent during this period.

Driving the combined FTA export downfall was the decline in U.S. exports to Korea, by far the largest of the three economies, under the first nine months of the Korea FTA. Despite Obama administration promises that the pact would boost exports, U.S. exports to Korea took a dramatic plunge after the deal took effect in March 2012, and have continued the downward trajectory since. Some of the worst declines were in the sectors the administration touted as prospective “winners” under the agreement. U.S. pork exports to Korea declined 17 percent under the FTA in 2012 relative to the same months in 2011, while beef exports fell 11 percent and poultry exports plunged 40 percent. While U.S. auto exports to Korea have increased four percent under the FTA, U.S. auto imports from Korea have surged 17 percent, causing an 18 percent rise in the U.S. auto trade deficit with Korea.

Overall, growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not FTA partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 38 percent over the last decade. Between 2002 and 2012, U.S. goods exports to FTA partner countries grew by an annual average rate of only 4.8 percent.  Goods exports to non-FTA partner countries, by contrast, grew by 6.6 percent per year on average.

 

Beware the Re-Export Data Trap…

As the chart below shows, the U.S. Census Bureau methodology inflates the value of U.S. exports by counting goods that actually are made overseas – not by U.S. workers. These “re-exports” are goods made elsewhere that are shipped through the United States en route to a final destination. Since passage of NAFTA and similar FTAs, re-exports have increased dramatically, causing a growing gap between U.S.-made exports and the inflated export numbers reported by the U.S. Census Bureau.

As a result, the actual U.S. trade deficit in goods has exceeded the re-exports-skewed trade deficit data to an increasing degree, soaring more than 20 percent above the skewed number for the last four years. In 2012, the actual trade deficit exceeded the distorted trade deficit by $170 billion, a difference that implies an additional 1.1 million net U.S. jobs displaced by unbalanced trade, according to a ratio used by the Obama administration.  

More Bad News for U.S. Exports under Korea FTA

Newly-released government data reveals that U.S. exports to Korea continue to plummet after eight months of implementation of the U.S.-Korea "free trade" agreement (FTA).  Despite Obama administration promises that the NAFTA-style pact would boost U.S. exports (and thus jobs), U.S. exports took a dramatic plunge after the deal took effect in March 2012, and have continued the downward trajectory since (as we've reported here, here, and here).  Under the FTA, U.S. goods exports to Korea have declined by nine percent (a decrease of more than $2.5 billion) in comparison to 2011 levels for the same months.   The post-FTA export plunge is indicated by the blue line in this graph:

Ironically, some of the biggest downfalls in U.S. exports to Korea have occurred in the automotive and meat industries—the two sectors that the Obama administration promised would experience particularly strong export growth under the deal.  Compared with the pre-FTA levels of 2011, here's the FTA's legacy thus far in these key sectors:

• U.S. auto exports have declined by 1 percent ($11.7 million) while imports of cars and auto parts from Korea have soared 17 percent ($1.8 billion) resulting in a 19 percent increase in the U.S. automotive trade deficit with Korea.
• U.S. beef exports have fallen by 13 percent under the FTA, a $50 million loss.
• U.S. pork exports have dropped by 20 percent under the FTA, a $52 million loss.
• U.S. poultry exports have plummeted by 40 percent under the FTA, a $36 million loss. 

In just the first eight months of the FTA, the decisive fall in U.S. exports to Korea has contributed to a 21 percent increase in the U.S. trade deficit with Korea, in comparison to the same period in 2011 (indicated by the increased red area in the graph above).  Using the same ratio employed by the Obama administration, this trade deficit expansion implies the net loss of over 16,000 U.S. jobs under the pact's first several months.  

Amazingly, the administration is still trying to sell the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the NAFTA-esque successor to the Korea FTA, with the same tired shtick used for the Korea deal: FTA = exports = jobs.  How far will exports have to fall before this data-defying talking point can be put to rest?  

U.S. Exports to Korea Suffer under FTA

Today's release of new trade data for October revealed more of the same under the Korea FTA: lower exports, higher imports, and a deeper U.S. trade deficit with Korea.  We've reported similar trends in past months here, here, and here.

In comparison with the FTA-free month of October 2011 (after adjusting for inflation), this FTA-encumbered October saw 3% fewer exports to Korea, 3.4% more imports from Korea, and a 20.4% jump in the U.S.-Korea trade deficit.   For the full seven months since the FTA's implementation for which data is available, exports have fallen 7.5%, imports have risen 0.4%, and the deficit has widened 23.3% in comparison to 2011 levels.  That's bad news for U.S. job creation--the promise under which the Obama administration sold this NAFTA-style deal.  

The falling exports are particularly disconcerting.  While, the U.S. has yawning trade deficits with many countries, exports to those countries tend to still rise, though overshadowed by even larger increases in imports.  Under the Korea FTA, exports have actually been falling in real terms in comparison to 2011.  Indeed, most of the deepening deficit under the FTA can be explained by reduced exports rather than increased imports.  

For a depiction of this job-erasing reality, see the graph below, which portrays the difference in inflation-adjusted export levels, import levels, and overall trade balance when comparing the FTA months of 2012 with the same FTA-less months of 2011.  This year's overall more negative trade balance (i.e. deeper deficit), represented by the green area, owes largely to the fact that exports, represented by the red line, have remained consistently lower (with the tiny exception of June) under the FTA.  

The US Trade Representative under Obama sold the Korea FTA with the slogan "More Exports. More Jobs."  I wonder how they'd sell this graph.  

Let Them Eat Steak: How Costco Totally Makes Up for NAFTA's Sordid Legacy

On Monday, the Washington Post published an article extolling NAFTA for bringing Costco to Mexico.  The article profiled the expansion of the bulk goods behemoth across the Rio Grande as an example of how NAFTA has allowed “Made in USA” products to sweep through Mexico, to the delight of U.S. workers and Mexican consumers.  It’s a happy, albeit misleading, narrative. 

The Post article missed nearly two-thirds of the NAFTA story.  It reported that “trade between the United States and Mexico is surging” thanks to NAFTA.  Indeed.  But 65% of the surge has been in Mexican products imported into the U.S., not U.S. products heading to Mexico.  While U.S. exports to Mexico have more than doubled since NAFTA, imports from Mexico have more than quadrupled (after controlling for inflation).  The net impact on U.S. workers has been the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of jobs as the small pre-NAFTA trade surplus with Mexico has crashed into 17 consecutive years of trade deficits.  Last year the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico topped $100 billion for the first time, accelerating the job atrophy.

Meanwhile, the article portrayed the comparably small rise in U.S. exports as a gift to Mexican consumers, who can now, according to the article, stroll Costco’s wide aisles for “marbled slabs of steak” and “sacks of russet potatoes.”  Really?  The populace that perfected a delectable, corn-based diet should thank NAFTA for steak and potatoes?  While Mexico's small upper-middle class may well enjoy the southward march of Costco, the 51% of Mexicans who now live below the national poverty line—a higher share than at any point in the last decade—are not loading carts with “Made in USA” steak. 

Indeed, for many Mexicans, Costco has meant fewer tamales sold, not more steak bought. The article notes that the NAFTA-encouraged proliferation of megastore chains is “challenging, for better or worse, the traditional mom-and-pop stores doling out soda, eggs and tortillas.”  Let’s see—is that “better” or “worse?”  NAFTA displaced approximately 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses in just its first four years.  Those who support small business as a means of creating jobs and overcoming poverty will find that NAFTA trend decidedly “worse.”

When newspapers perpetuate narratives that obscure NAFTA’s failures for the majority of workers at home and abroad, policymakers are more prone to replicate the failure.  And replicate they did with last year’s passage of the NAFTA-style deals with Korea, Colombia, and Panama.  With the Korea FTA now in effect since March, we are already starting to see results that all too closely resemble NAFTA’s legacy.  On Tuesday, the U.S. International Trade Commission released data for another month of FTA trade with Korea, revealing a whopping $1.9 billion trade deficit with the country in July alone, 30% above last year’s July deficit.  Overall, the U.S. trade deficit with Korea has risen to $6.8 billion under the first four months of the Korea FTA, as mounting imports have surpassed exports and eroded U.S. jobs. 

Even so, maybe the NAFTA-style deal has at least allowed Korean consumers to enjoy a new influx of Costco’s.  That is, assuming they’ve been willing to jettison small businesses in exchange for steak and potatoes.  

What Jobs? After NAFTA-Style Deal, an Unparalleled Surge in Korea Trade Deficit

Last year, President Obama and Congressional Republicans sold the U.S. public the promise that a NAFTA-style deal with Korea, passed last October, would bring jobs by boosting U.S. exports.  At the time, this claim contradicted even the government’s own projection that the trade deal would worsen the U.S.’s trade balance with South Korea.  Now, it appears to contradict the evidence. 

Since the March 15 implementation of the Korea trade deal, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea has reached dramatic levels for the second consecutive month for which we have data.  While the U.S.’s goods deficit with South Korea in March was a mere $0.6 billion, in April the deficit trebled to $1.8 billion.  By contrast, the U.S. goods deficits with major trading partners like Japan, Mexico, and Germany all declined that month. 

In May, the goods deficit with South Korea hit the $2 billion mark, the ninth largest monthly deficit among the U.S.’s 230 trading partners.  (In May of last year, the deficit stood at only $1.3 billion and South Korea ranked 15th in deficit magnitude.)  Indeed, from March to May, while the overall U.S. trade deficit fell, the deficit with South Korea increased more (in dollar terms) than with any other country in the world, except for one: China. 

This worrisome data cripples the Obama Administration’s promise that more NAFTA-style deals will bring export-led job growth.  The post-FTA surge in the trade deficit with Korea was prompted in part by a $759 million downfall in U.S. exports to Korea from March to May.  Using a ratio employed by the International Trade Administration, the drop in exports over these two post-FTA months alone amounts to over 5,000 lost U.S. jobs. 

Last month, President Obama’s campaign ads named Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney as a would-be “Outsourcer-in-Chief,” accusing the Republican candidate of offshoring U.S. jobs during his time at Bain Capital.  Given the track record of the Korea trade deal thus far, perhaps the President should take some of his own medicine.  He could start by telling his Administration to stop pushing forward the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a NAFTA-on-steroids deal with even larger job-killing prospects than what we’ve seen from the deficit-fostering Korea deal.  

Can you say "Déjà vu" in Spanish?

Dear Neighbor:

Congratulations on your inclusion in the elite group of states that are currently negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement! Your acceptance into this proposed “historic, 21^st century trade agreement” means that much of the “burden” of making laws and regulations for your nation will be taken off of you. No worries; lobbyists for Hollywood and American pharmaceutical companies and more than 600 official “corporate trade advisers” to the Office of United States Trade Representative (USTR) will help take care of the details.

Sorry to mention it, but we’re afraid many of your laws pertaining to intellectual property (IP), affecting issues from Internet privacy to access to affordable medications, might need a little “tweaking” to ensure they comply with the specifications of U.S. corporate “advisers.” The USTR’s demands at the TPP negotiations read like a wish list from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and YOU have the opportunity to grant all their wishes.

You see, the condition the U.S. imposed for Mexico to get a seat at this corporate banquet was that Mexico agree to accept everything that the other countries already have negotiated over the past three years. Sure, NAFTA required some nasty changes to your IP laws. Remember the millions your government wasted trying to lift the U.S. patent on common yellow beans that a bio-prospector filed after NAFTA? Well, wait until you get a look at the 21^st century NAFTA on steroids!

As a part of the “historic” TPP negotiations, it is time for your laws to truly reflect your new “21^st century” status. For instance, you need to expand pharmaceutical patent protection and create new pharmaceutical monopolies in Mexico. You also need to extend copyright protection to device memory buffers and criminalize circumvention of technological protection measures, limiting fair and educational uses of all kinds of literary and artistic content. Overall, you are expected to introduce new, draconian provisions into Mexican law to lengthen, strengthen and broaden IP monopolies in Mexico.

The strict IP enforcement in this scenario may seem very familiar to you. In fact, you fought off a very similar – although less extreme – attack on your privacy and rights on the Internet in 2011 in the form of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Some objections to ACTA expressed by Mexico Senator Carlos Sotelo Garcia in September 2010 included the opaque nature of the ACTA negotiations, stringent IP enforcement measures (championed by the U.S.), and the “erosion” of access to information technology for approximately thirty million Mexican citizens.

A look at any current media coverage of the TPP will reveal a scene that is eerily familiar and equally concerning. Sorry to break the news, but the opacity of the TPP negotiations makes the ACTA process look like a pinnacle of open government. The TPP has been negotiated entirely in secret, with the only glimpse of the text coming from leaks of the IP, investment and other chapters. Furthermore, each of the negotiating nations has agreed to keep all documents besides the finalized text a secret for four years following the conclusion of negotiations, whether it is ever finalized or not. So whereas the same report by Senator Garcia implemented a working group to review the provisions of ACTA, no such legislative oversight would be possible in the TPP. Apparently the only way to get a look at the “21^st century agreement” – even for legislators of the countries in the negotiations – is to introduce a resolution demanding they be allowed to see how trade negotiators are rewriting a nation’s laws. In the U.S, the chairman of the Senate committee with official jurisdiction over TPP, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), has done just that. Yup, the chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness and his staff were explicitly refused access to even the U.S. negotiators’ proposal to the TPP negotiations.

The legislature of Mexico has already expressed its opinion of trade agreements that restrict privacy and rights on the Internet. On June 21, 2011, the Mexican Congress passed a resolution that urged that the Federal Executive not become a signatory of ACTA:

The Standing Committee of the H. Congress, respectfully urges the Federal Executive Power to, within the framework of its powers, instruct the ministries and agencies involved in negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), not to sign the Treaty.

Reading this sort of language coming from the national legislature of a sovereign nation, one might draw the conclusion that ACTA is doomed in that country. But foreign corporate interests have found another foothold in the laws of Mexico – in the form of the TPP. You may have believed that ACTA was dead in Mexico, but, like el chupacabras, it is rising again and this time it is even stronger.

Welcome to the 21^st century, dear neighbor.

 

Follow Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/PCMedsAccess
Read more at our webpage: http://citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=4955

Just Relax, Canada. U.S. Pharma Will Handle It

Dear Fellow Canadians:

Welcome to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations! Since you are fresh off a bruising fight getting provisions that protect Internet freedom and privacy into Canada’s copyright Bill C-11, I’m sure that you are exhausted with defending your rights. Take heart. With the TPP, you will not have much of a say on laws or policies threatening your privacy, rights on the Internet or access to affordable medicines. Instead, lobbyists from major American industries and some 600 “corporate trade advisers” have helped lay out some of what the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) expects from you.

These are the same industries that forced major concessions on C-11’s approach to digital locks despite near-universal criticism. Hundreds of pages of new non-trade policy contained in the most sweeping “free trade agreement” could face a mere up or down vote in the House of Commons. And the USTR proposes intellectual property provisions that cover dramatically more than copyright law. They touch a wide range of IP issues.

You thought NAFTA was a pill? Sure, Big PhRMA used NAFTA to attack our drug formulary system and all of those compulsory licenses for affordable meds. But back then, our government drew a line. Despite some considerable hysteria from the U.S. drug industry giants, you did not give away all of our policy space. This time, however, the TPP gives Prime Minister Stephen Harper a way to write all of us a real prescription for high drug prices and cement his view of Canada as an extended playground for corporate America.

Here are some of the highlights of the U.S. proposed IP chapter:

• Expand patent evergreening and create new pharmaceutical monopolies, raising medicine costs;

• Dramatically increase the life of a copyright term from 50 years in most cases under C-11 to 95 years;

• Increase penalties for circumvention and reduce the exceptions for individuals; and

• Establish an American-style notice-and-take down system for online copyright infringement.

This seems like a lot. If you were worried, however, that we had some duty to at least read the proposals for the law and voice our democratic concern, fear not. Negotiators act in secret. The only glimpse of the actual agreement so far has come from leaked copies of the text from the IP, Investment and other chapters. Remember in the good old days of ACTA when the University of Ottawa filed an access-to-information request but received a blacked out document with only the title visible? Expect similar treatment during TPP negotiations. While lobbyists and corporate liaisons are granted electronic access to the agreement, your parliamentary representative might have to walk down to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to speak personally with The Honourable Ed Fast P.C. , M.P., Minister of International Trade.

Moreover, if you are distressed by the fact that our respectable Department of Trade will have lots of work reviewing all the work done so far once Canada’s negotiators get hold of these secret drafts, you will be relieved to hear that Canada has a lesser role in the negotiations. By coming late to the table, Canada has achieved a second-tier position. This status requires Canada to agree to all the settled chapters, which its officials have not even read, and Canada cannot veto current provisions. Thus, not even lobbyists or the trade minister need concern themselves with settled provisions. The TPP negotiations shut individual citizens and even members of parliament and ministers out of the process.

The public response to C-11 proved that civil engagement has made a difference on intellectual property issues in Canada. The people—frustrated, fearful and bedraggled—woke up to the oppressive measures of industry groups and fought hard. But this is far from the end. In upcoming years, we might still witness the implementation of a multinational corporations’ wish list, which seeks to criminalize copyright infringement, implement ACTA-plus provisions and restrict Canadians’ access to affordable medicines. Through the TPP, the USTR seeks to achieve all these goals and more—without too much of a voice from us. Will we allow American industry to dictate to the Canadian people our rights—or stand up and demand that Canada step down from these negotiations?

Follow Public Citizen's Global Access to Medicines Program: https://twitter.com/#!/PCMedsAccess

James Cormie is a legal intern at Global Access to Medicines Program.  Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, James blogs on issues of trade, IP, and international law.

Leaked TPP Chapter Sparks Outrage

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Investment Chapter that leaked last week has been making waves. Trade scholars, talking heads, citizens and politicians are all discussing the ramifications of this chapter, which outlines the process that multinational corporations can use to sue governments that enact laws to protect public health, workers’ rights, and the environment.

The leak of this secretive chapter has amplified the voices of bipartisan congressmen and numerous civil society organizations who have long been demanding transparency in the TPP negotiations. Huffington Post ran an article which opened on the front page and has drawn a record number of reader comments- 29,959 to date. The text of the article cites the list of calamitous effects the TPP Investment Chapter could have, including raising the cost of vital medicines and effectively ending “Buy American” preferences for domestic manufacturers. Global Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach warned that "the outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of [trade] negotiations."

The progressive online magazine Salon ran a story warning its readers that TPP could grow “bigger than NAFTA.” Other articles have also appeared in a variety of domestic and international outlets, including RT (which also interviewed our own Todd Tucker), Inside US Trade, The New Zealand Herald, Law360, the Santiago Times and the International Economic Law and Policy Blog, among others.

Wallach has also discussed the leak on numerous radio and television programs. On the news show “Democracy Now,” Lori spoke with Amy Goodman and Juan González about the dangers of TPP as “a 'one-percenter' power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights." She also appeared on numerous other TV and radio outlets, including the Viewpoint with Elliot Spitzer on CurrentTV, Let’s Talk About It Radio, Pacifica Radio, CounterSpin, the Dave Sirota Show, the Nicole Sandler Show, Stand UP! With Pete and Dominic, the Bill Press Show, and Sly in the Morning.

The leak has incited extremely significant dialogue, especially in Australia, which according to the leaked document would be the only TPP nation exempt from the Chapter’s provisions on investor-state tribunals.

Providing the public with access to the TPP Investment Chapter is a significant beginning step towards unearthing the secrets of the TPP negotiations and promoting awareness of the powers it bestows upon corporations at the expense of the citizens of America and the eight other TPP nations. (Or eleven, if you include this week's announcements that Canada and Mexico would join the talks.) The more exposure this document receives, the more pressure can be put upon negotiators to live up their promises of transparency.

Thanks to Jed Silver for contributing to this post.

Following Last Week’s Damaging Revelations About the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Obama Administration Expands Controversial Trade Deal

Following Last Week’s Damaging Revelations About the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Obama Administration Expands Controversial Trade Deal 

 WASHINGTON D.C. – That the Obama administration would invite an additional country to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after last week’s leak of secret negotiating documents revealing the proposed pact’s threats is outrageous, Public Citizen said today.

 Last week, after three years of closed-door negotiations, the text of the TPP Investment Chapter leaked, revealing that the Obama administration had agreed to submit the U.S. to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals where foreign corporations would be empowered to challenge U.S. laws and demand unlimited compensation from the U.S. Treasury.

 The revelation was met with criticism from the political left and right.  However, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) refused to comment on the leaked chapter. Increasingly, members of Congress are raising concerns about the pact, including Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, who has been denied access even to the U.S. proposals to the TPP negotiations.

 Following the growing criticism of the administration’s lack of transparency and the newly revealed substance of the TPP, instead of the administration reconsidering the many TPP provisions that would vastly expand corporate rights and privileges, the administration’s response was to add yet another country into TPP talks: Mexico. Meanwhile, reports out of New Zealand indicate that China also is pursuing entry into this so-called trade deal.

 “The TPP model is fundamentally flawed: It’s hard to imagine who in this country would support it if they knew that it banned ‘Buy American’ procurements, limited Internet freedom a la SOPA (the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act) or created a two-track judicial system privileging corporations with a new ticket to raid our tax dollars,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Adding more countries just expands the potential threats of corporate attacks that the TPP poses to people here and now also poses to Mexicans.”

 “Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade, and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike, have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do,” Wallach said. “U.S. trade officials are secretly limiting Internet freedoms, restricting financial regulation, extending medicine patents and giving corporations a whole host of other powers.”

 Opposition to the TPP is growing. Last month, 69 members of Congress sent a letter to President Barack Obama in response to revelations that TPP actually bans “Buy American” procurement rules.                                                       

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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.

Korea trade deficit balloons under NAFTA-style deal

Last October, President Obama and House Republicans teamed up to pass a NAFTA-style deal with Korea, even though the government's own projections showed it would increase the U.S. trade deficit.

That deal ended up going into effect on March 15 of of this year (despite many Koreans' opposition to the rights given multinationals under the pact, not to mention the opposition of many here at home).

We now have the first full month of data on the deal, and it's not looking good.

The deal, sold as a way to increase job-creating U.S. exports, actually saw job-displacing imports rise much more quickly in its first full month. As Inside U.S. Trade reports,

The U.S. trade deficit in goods with South Korea tripled during the first full month the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement was in force, amid a slight decrease in the overall U.S. goods and services deficit that month, according to April trade data released last week by the Commerce Department. The bilateral FTA went into effect on March 15.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with South Korea grew to $1.8 billion in April, with imports totaling roughly $5.5 billion compared to exports of $3.7 billion. That was a larger bilateral deficit than the $0.6 billion recorded in March, where imports totaled $4.8 billion and exports were $4.2 billion. In April 2011, the U.S. goods deficit with Korea was $1 billion.

On auto trade, the bilateral deficit with South Korea climbed to $1.65 billion in April from $1.45 billion the previous month. While U.S. exports of autos and auto parts stayed the same over both months at roughly $100 million, imports from Korea rose to $1.76 billion in April from $1.56 billion the previous month. The data were released June 8.

While it's difficult to draw too many conclusions from a single month of data, rest assurred that workers concerned about offshoring of jobs and trade displacement are going to be watching these numbers closely for many months and years to come. If the trade deficit (in autos and more generally) continues to climb, it will be very difficult for policymakers to sell more NAFTAs (like the proposed TPP) to an already skeptical public.

TPP could undermine Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans’ Health - hurting seniors, military families and the poor

You've read about how the leaked chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that surfaced yesterday will outsource our judicial system and allow corporations to attack our laws.

But did you know that an earlier leaked text shows that the TPP could also undermine Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans' Health? This could hurt access to affordable medicines for our seniors, military families, and poor.

Indeed, it has been an open secret among trade negotiators that U.S. pharmaceutical companies have pushed to limit drug price containment measures, such as through the recent bilateral trade deals with Korea and Australia.

But, in our new public interest analysis, Public Citizen shows that Medicaid, Medicare, the Department of Defense’s TRICARE program for active military personnel, and the Veterans Health Administration and the 340B program are all threatened by the TPP.

We also show how proposed changes to Medicare championed by President Obama would clearly risk violating the TPP. Throughout, we show how trade tribunals are less likely to defer to national healthcare regulators than do national judges, including conservatives like Justices Scalia and Thomas. We conclude with suggested changes to the TPP to insulate smart drug price containment strategies.

Read the full memo here.

Controversial Trade Pact Text Leaked, Shows U.S. Trade Officials Have Agreed to Terms That Undermine Obama Domestic Agenda

PUBLIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE

After Two Years of Closed-Door Negotiations, Trans-Pacific Partnership Text Replicates Alarming Bush Trade Pact Terms That Obama Opposed as Candidate, and Worse

WASHINGTON, D.C.– A leak today of one of the most controversial chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) reveals that extreme provisions have been agreed to by U.S. officials, providing a stark warning about the dangers of “trade” negotiations occurring under conditions of extreme secrecy without press, public or policymaker oversight, Public Citizen said.

 “The outrageous stuff in this leaked text may well be why U.S. trade officials have been so extremely secretive about these past two years of TPP negotiations,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do.”  

Although the TPP has been branded a “trade” agreement, the leaked text of the pact’s Investment Chapter shows that the TPP would:

• limit how U.S. federal and state officials could regulate foreign firms operating within U.S.  boundaries, with requirements to provide them greater rights than domestic firms;
• extend the incentives for U.S. firms to offshore investment and jobs to lower-wage countries;
• establish a two-track legal system that gives foreign firms new rights to skirt U.S. courts and laws, directly sue the U.S. government before foreign tribunals and demand compensation for financial, health, environmental, land use and other laws they claim undermine their TPP privileges; and
• allow foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. financial or environmental regulations that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms. 

While 600 official U.S. corporate advisors have access to TPP texts and have a special role in advising U.S. negotiators, for the public, press and policymakers, this leak provides the first access to one of the prospective TPP’s most controversial chapters. In May, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs and Global Competitiveness – the committee with jurisdiction over the TPP – filed legislation to open the process after he and his staff were denied access to even the U.S. proposals for the TPP negotiations. 

Last month, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk defended the unprecedented secrecy of TPP negotiations by noting that when the draft of a major regional trade pact was released previously, it became impossible to finish the deal as then proposed. 

“The top U.S. trade official effectively has said that the administration must keep TPP secret because otherwise it won’t be able to shove this deal past the public and Congress,” said Wallach. “The airing of this one TPP chapter, which greatly favors foreign corporations over domestic businesses and the public interest and exposes us to significant financial liabilities, shows that the whole draft text must be released immediately so it can be reviewed and debated. Absent that, these negotiations must be ended now.” 

The TPP is the first trade pact the Obama administration is negotiating. Today’s leak further complicates the administration’s goal of completing TPP negotiations this fall. Already the TPP timeline was generating political headaches for the Obama re-election campaign, as repeated U.S polling shows that majorities of Democrats, Independents and GOP oppose more NAFTA-style trade deals. 

The TPP may well be the last trade agreement that the U.S. negotiates. This is because TPP, if completed, would have a new feature relative to past U.S. trade pacts: It would remain open for any other country to join later. Last month, USTR Kirk said that he "would love nothing more" than to have China join TPP.

The TPP offered an opportunity to develop a new model of trade agreement that could deliver the benefits of expanded trade without unduly undermining signatory nations’ domestic public interest policies or establishing special privileges for foreign corporations. President Barack Obama and countless members of Congress campaigned on fixing these investment rules to better protect the public interest. But Public Citizen’s analysis of this text shows that the U.S. positions do not reflect any of the changes that candidate Obama pledged when he recognized the threats posed by the NAFTA-style investment provisions in trade agreements. 

The leak also reveals that:

• Australia has refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the “investor-state” private corporate enforcement foreign tribunal system;
• U.S. negotiators are alone in seeking to expand this extra-judicial enforcement system to allow the use of foreign tribunals to enforce contracts that foreign investors may have with a government for government procurement or to operate utilities contracts and even related to concessions for natural resources on federal lands;
• Other countries are proposing safeguards for financial regulation and limits to the corporate tribunals that the U.S. has not supported.

 Public Citizen’s analysis of the leaked text and guided tour through its provisions can be found here.

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BREAKING: For an analysis of these developments by Zach Carter of The Huffington Post, click here.

TPP Chiefs Raise Doubts about USTR’s Corporate IP Wish List

At the May 13th stakeholder briefing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade talks outside Dallas, at least six countries' Chief Negotiators began to openly distance themselves from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), particularly from USTR’s radical intellectual property (IP) proposals, which would expand the scope and duration of pharmaceutical monopolies and challenge internet freedom.

In the past, these stakeholder briefings have felt like exercises in the art of saying little. USTR has sought to keep all nine countries on a common, limited message. But perhaps USTR can only push other countries and the public so far.

Early in the session, I asked the Chiefs:

The past year has witnessed the rise of an internet freedom social movement, with more than 3 million people petitioning the US Congress to block SOPA [the Stop Online Piracy Act] and tens of thousands protesting in the streets across Europe to shut down ACTA [the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement]. I think in Poland, these may have been the largest demonstrations since the Solidarity movement. Even Germany’s ministry of economic development is recommending against developing countries signing ACTA. Given that you are not releasing the TPP text, how will you assure people that the TPP will not pose similar problems?

Chile kicked things off, answering:

We are nine countries with many different positions—we are not all the same.

This may sound tame, but for those listening to the evolution of TPP sound bites, it was a surprisingly public distancing from USTR and its copyright and enforcement demands. And it set the pace for the day.

TPP = Corporate Power Tool of The 1 Percent

DALLAS- Tuesday, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) twelfth round of negotiations will begin behind closed doors at the Intercontinental Hotel here. Branded as a "trade deal" by its corporate proponents, the TPP in reality would establish new corporate rights to ease job offshoring, attack environmental and health laws in foreign tribunals and extend medicine patents. Its expansive non-trade provisions would impose constraints on government regulation of financial firms, food safety and more. As the Huffington Post's Zach Carter reported, the TPP would even ban "Buy America" procurement policy.

The TPP also includes aspects of SOPA, the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act. The pact would even elevate corporations to equal status with signatory governments allowing them to privately enforce their new rights be suing government in foreign tribunals to demand taxpayer compensation for policies that undermine the companies' expected future profits. Intensive negotiations have been underway for two years under conditions of extreme secrecy. More than 600 hundred corporate "advisors" have access to the draft texts while the press, public and Congress are shut out. This comic video, set to a parody tune based of the Jackson Five's ABC, aims to pierce the dangerous lack of public awareness about this audacious corporate power grab. With funny animation and a sarcastic tone, it highlights that the TPP is "all about secrecy" and has "nothing to do with trade you see". You can learn more about the TPP at www.TPP2012.com

Members of Congress Urge Obama to Stop the TPP from Banning Buy American

Here is the text of the letter:

Dear President Obama,

 We write in strong support of Buy American procurement policies, including the various federal programs that have been in place since the enactment of the Buy American Act in 1933 and passage by many states of similar preference policies.  We are concerned about proposals we understand are under consideration in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement negotiations that could significantly limit Buy American provisions and as a result adversely impact American jobs, workers, and manufacturers.

Under the proposed TPP framework, individual states and the federal government would be obligated to bring existing and future domestic policies into compliance with norms set forth in 26 proposed TPP chapters, including one covering government procurement policy.  Failure to conform our domestic policies to these terms would subject the United States (U.S.) government to lawsuits before international dispute resolution tribunals empowered to authorize trade sanctions against the U.S. until our policies are changed.

In the past, U.S. Free Trade Agreements (FTA) required that all firms operating in a signatory country be provided equal access as domestic firms to U.S. government procurement contracts over a certain dollar threshold.  To implement this “national treatment” requirement, the U.S. waived Buy American procurement policies for firms operating in FTA-signatory countries. Effectively, in exchange for opportunities for some U.S. firms to bid on contracts in smaller foreign procurement markets, we traded away an important policy tool that can ensure that billions in U.S. government expenditures are recycled into our economy to create jobs, strengthen our manufacturing sector, and foster our own new cutting-edge industries.

We do not believe this approach is in the best interest of U.S. manufacturers and U.S. workers. Of special concern is the prospect that firms established in TPP countries, such as the many Chinese firms in Vietnam, could obtain waivers from Buy American policies.  This could result in large sums of U.S. tax dollars being invested to strengthen other countries’ manufacturing sectors, rather than our own.  At a time when U.S. manufacturing only employs 11.71 million people, a 40% decline from its peak in 1979 and the lowest since 1941, we simply cannot allow this to happen. 

As you know, procurement policy established in trade agreements cannot be later modified without consent of all signatory countries.  This would deprive Congress and U.S. state legislatures of their authority to modify procurement policies despite fundamentally changed national or international circumstances.  Therefore, we are writing to inquire about U.S. negotiators’ procurement proposals for the TPP and to encourage your Administration not to provide “national treatment” for U.S. government procurement.  This matter is of considerable urgency given the stated goal of completing these talks this summer and the special TPP intercessional negotiations on procurement held early last month.

 While we may have different views on other aspects of the prospective TPP, we are united in our belief that American trade agreements should not limit the ability of Congress and U.S. state legislatures to determine what procurement policies are in our national interest.  Thank you for your consideration of our views, and we look forward to your response on this important matter.

 

Sincerely,

Donna F. Edwards                                                                Nick J. Rahall, II

Member of Congress                                                      Member of Congress

 

 cc: The Honorable Ron Kirk, United States Trade Representative

Korean Supreme Court urges renegotiation of investor-state clause; expresses concerns of “extreme legal chaos”

An English language Korean newspaper broke some startling news earlier this week. See the full story here.

In 2006, the Supreme Court in Korea submitted an opinion to the government recommending a renegotiation of the investor-state clause, citing concerns that the dispute system could lead to “extreme legal chaos” resulting from increased arbitration requests from U.S. investors.

Five years (and a negotiated trade deal) later, the court’s request has finally been disclosed.

The document warns against problems of sovereignty infringement, extreme investor rights, and legal instability. It also notes that “whether or not to introduce an investor-state dispute system is a decision to be made after the sufficient gathering of opinions from the South Korean public.”
(See here for more on that.) Apparently, one of the bases for their concern was a NAFTA case brought against the U.S., which we detail here.

And according to the article,

The South Korean government announced that it would be renegotiating investment-related provisions in the KORUS FTA with the US within 90 days of its effective date of Mar. 15. It has had a task force working since March on a negotiation draft.

U.S. Abandons Final Pretense of Transparency or Inclusion of Consumer, Health, Environmental, Labor Perspective in Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Talks

WASHINGTON D.C. – U.S. trade officials have quietly cut stakeholder presentations from the next set of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement negotiations, eliminating the last pretense that the process of the talks is transparent and inclusive and sending a message that only the views of the 600 official corporate trade advisors provided special access to the talks will be reflected in the final deal, Public Citizen said today. At previous TPP negotiating rounds, a day was set aside for civil society groups and others with concerns about the TPP to make presentations to negotiators.

“The message is clear: From now on, not only will the talks remain behind closed doors, but all pretense of consideration of consumer safety, health, environmental or labor concerns has been thrown out in favor of ensuring that the damning record of past U.S. trade pacts use of the same terms being pushed by the U.S. for TPP are not brought into the discussion,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

“The stakeholder presentations were the last vestige of transparency in these TPP talks,” Wallach said. “Many negotiators from other countries have told me that the stakeholder process was very valuable because it provided detailed information on the problems caused by past U.S. trade agreements (and on how they have actually worked) that was not generally available and certainly not being shared by U.S. negotiators, who generally have promoted positions promoted by industry interests.”

                Indeed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently noted on its website that it had “led the business community’s advocacy for U.S. negotiators to include strong disciplines in the TPP trade agreement on intellectual property and path-breaking new rules on regulatory coherence, due process in antitrust enforcement and state-owned enterprises. In these and other areas, U.S. negotiators have proposed negotiating text that hews close to the chamber’s recommendations.”

Public Citizen earlier this month joined with other public interest groups from the nine TPP countries to demand that the draft TPP text be released. Negotiating texts for past deals have been released, such as for the Free Trade Area of the Americas in 2001. Currently, more than 600 official corporate trade advisors have access – to which the press and public are denied. Indeed, TPP countries signed an agreement in 2010 to not release negotiating texts until four years after a deal is completed or negotiations abandoned.

To date, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk has refused to release any draft TPP text, despite repeated calls from civil society groups for more than a year. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on Trade, has led congressional efforts to make the process more transparent. Wyden told Oregon Live, “When international accords, like ACTA, are conceived and constructed under a cloak of secrecy, it is hard to argue that they represent the broad interests of the general public.”

“USTR’s response to the request by civil society groups and Sen. Wyden to see draft texts of a massive agreement that will rewrite wide swaths of U.S. non-trade law has been to slam the door shut, instead of opening up the process and making it more transparent,” said Wallach.

The fallout from the U.S. decision already has begun. In response, New Zealand civil society groups have called on their government to “pull the plug” and walk away from the TPP talks. The TPP negotiations cover issues ranging from banning Buy America policies, to curbing Internet freedom, to providing offshoring incentives and special rights for corporations to attack U.S. laws in foreign tribunals.

“You can only assume that the TPP would not survive the light of day, and that is why the U.S. public is being denied access to details and now civil society groups are being sidelined,” Wallach said. “The Obama administration declares itself the most transparent administration ever, and President Barack Obama campaigned on transparency in government. It’s time he put those words into action.” The next round of TPP talks will take place May 8-18 at the InterContinental Dallas hotel in Addison, Texas.                                                               

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As Secretive Trade Negotiations Resume in LA, Public Interest Groups Demand Transparency

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — As trade negotiators from throughout the Pacific Rim meet in Los Angeles this week for talks aimed at moving the Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement (TPP) towards a rapid completion, labor, environmental and consumer advocates demanded that negotiating proposals be made available for public review and comment. 

“Americans deserve the right to know what U.S. negotiators have been proposing in our names,” said Tim Robertson, director of the California Fair Trade Coalition.  “This is the third year of serious negotiations on a pact that’s supposed set the standard for international trade and investment across the globe.  It’s outrageous that the public hasn’t been told what our representatives are negotiating for and what domestic policies they are giving away.”

The TPP is soon entering its twelfth major round of negotiations between the United States, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, and is explicitly intended as a “docking agreement” that other nations will join over time.  Canada, Japan and Mexico have already indicated their interest in doing so.  U.S. negotiators are pushing for the completion of the TPP negotiations this year. 

The U.S. has reportedly introduced text for most, if not all, of an estimated 26 separate TPP chapters covering everything from our environment to financial regulations, drug patents to public procurement.  While approximately 600 corporate lobbyists and a handful of others have been given “cleared advisor” status enabling them to review and comment on these proposals, the general public has not been allowed to do so.  This is a far less transparent negotiating process than many other international agreements, including those at the World Trade Organization, where draft negotiating texts are published online. 

“On the table in these talks are critical issues related to the rights of workers, climate change, biodiversity and our global economy.  It is crucially important that there is transparency around what is being negotiated and time for open debate and public participation,” said Ilana Solomon, trade representative with the Sierra Club.

TPP negotiations in Los Angeles are occurring from April 1 to 4 on labor, environmental and government procurement provisions.  What information is available on U.S. proposals comes primarily from a small handful of leaked documents and conversations with negotiators from other countries. 

“If U.S. negotiators get their way, the public will be barred from reviewing any proposals until the negotiations are over, at which point it will be virtually impossible to make any substantive changes,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.  “That’s a bad way of making public policy, to say the least.  Frankly, it reinforces the worst public perceptions about government working behind-closed-doors with moneyed interests at the expense of the general public.” 

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Public Citizen Applauds President Obama's Decision to Finally Release Draft Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Trade Agreement Text Over Objections Of U.S. Trade Representative Vlad von Dracula

 WASHINGTON:  Today President Obama removed a mortifying blot from his claim of having the most transparent administration ever by releasing the draft text of a massive regional trade agreement now in its third year of negotiations that will affect wide swaths of U.S. federal and state non-trade policy, said Public Citizen.

"We thought the secrecy could not get worse than when the previous U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Ron Kirk actually admitted under Senate Finance Committee questioning in March that he would not release the TPP text because doing so would ensure he could never complete the deal," said Public Citizen's Sunshine Isthebest. “Then the new USTR, Vlad von Dracula, announced that not only would the text never be made public until the deal was set in stone and unchangeable, but that negotiations could no longer be conducted during daylight hours to minimize the chance that those who will live with the results could get a peek.”

Although draft trade agreements have been made public by negotiating governments in the past, including the last major regional trade deal the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and the World Trade Organization posts draft negotiating texts, the TPP text has been kept secret. Indeed, in a special TPP secrecy agreement signed in 2010, the Obama administration agreed for the first time in trade pact history to keep negotiating texts secret for four year after a deal was signed or abandoned. Only 600 corporate representatives serving as officials U.S. trade advisors and officials of the 8 other TPP governments have had access to the texts, which is to say everyone but the U.S. public, press and most in Congress.

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Despite free-trade pact, S. Koreans don’t fancy U.S. cars

Just days after the Korea FTA was implemented, the word on the streets of Seoul is that buying U.S. cars is NOT a priority.

Here's a clip from the Washington Times:

SEOUL — If President Obama wants to sell more American-made cars to South Korea, nobody has yet told the average South Korean.

In a Starbucks in downtown Seoul, Shin Yoon-chu, 38, was asked for his opinion of automobiles made in the U.S.A.

“Not that popular,” Mr. Shin said. “We have a feeling that they require a lot of fuel. And if you compare to the European cars, the design is not that great.”

The Korean-U.S. free-trade agreement went into effect March 15, just before Seoul played host to Mr. Obama and more than 50 other heads of state at this week’s nuclear security summit. Mr. Obama, hoping to energize his union base and boost the economy, is fond of saying the long-sought FTA will help the U.S. auto industry by increasing exports.

“Thanks to the bipartisan trade agreements I signed into law with you in mind, there will soon be new cars on the streets of South Korea imported from Detroit, Toledo and Chicago,” he told a United Auto Workers convention in Washington in February.

Read the rest from the Washington Times by clicking here.

Global Trade Watch's Director Lori Wallach in The American Prospect

PACIFIC ILLUSIONS: NEW REPORT EXPOSES TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP SHORTCOMINGS, AS OBAMA PRESSES AHEAD

 Washington, DC -- Today, President Obama will announce plans to escalate the administration's trade offensive against China. This follows the administration's pattern of taking a hard line on narrow issues, while at the same time working to finalize a much more consequential grand-bargain with the region: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). As Obama’s main trade and diplomatic thrust in the Pacific, the TPP is meant to revive the U.S. export economy and counter Chinese influence. In reality, it does neither. 

Pacific Illusions, a new special report by The American Prospect, examines why the TPP appears doomed to repeat the failures of previous free-trade agreements. 

Read Pacific Illusions online: http://bit.ly/AxMS2R

Pacific Illusions shows how the TPP fails on trade because it doesn’t address the most important issues: currency manipulation, trade with state-owned companies, investment subsidies to induce off-shoring, and the asymmetry between the mercantilist policies and practices of much of Asia and the free trade regime of the United States. 

Contributors and issues covered include:

-- Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Economic Strategy Institute, explains why the TPP will undercut the U.S. strategic position in "The Pacific Pivot."

 

-- Jeff Faux, founder of the Economic Policy Institute and now its distinguished fellow, analyzes how the deal will accelerate offshoring and drive down wages, in "The Myth of the Level Playing Field."

-- Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, argues that the provisions of the proposed deal and its secretive negotiations amount to a covert attack on regulation, in "A Stealth Attack on Democratic Governance."

-- Kevin P. Gallagher, associate professor of international relations at Boston University and senior researcher at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University describes how the damage won't be limited to the U.S., as the economies of smaller Asian countries will also take a hit, in "Not A Great Deal For Asia."

-- Merrill Goozner, senior correspondent for The Fiscal Times, takes a look at how U.S.-based solar and microchip industries will be harmed the agreement; Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large at The American Prospect, addresses the negative impact on auto and steel manufacturing. 

 

Obama Ignores Korean Request for Changes to Trade Deal; Implementation Rushed to Beat Korean April Election

Korean Party Expected to Win Warns Obama It Will Revoke Pact Absent Changes

 WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Obama administration should accept Korean demands to remove controversial private corporate protections from the Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA), rather than rush to implement the deal ahead of the April 11 Korean parliamentary elections (which recent polls indicate will elevate a political party that has vowed to terminate the pact unless the “investor-state” enforcement system is altered), Public Citizen said today. The mid-month implementation date being pushed for the Korea FTA is extremely rare for the United States. Generally, trade pacts are implemented on the first day of a month, since tariff cut phase-ins are determined from the date a pact goes into effect.

On Dec. 27, 2011, the Korean parliament passed a resolution calling for FTA renegotiations to remove the private investor enforcement system. On Feb. 8, nearly 100 parliamentarians – mainly from the opposition Democratic United Party (DUP), which is expected to gain control of the parliament in April – wrote President Barack Obama, vowing to terminate the FTA if it is implemented without changes. Shortly thereafter, the United States Trade Representative announced that the pact would be implemented on March 15.

Tens of thousands of anti-FTA protestors are again in the streets of Korea, while Korean polling shows 70 percent opposition to the pact. The FTA is one of the defining issues of the Korean election. The ruling party reorganized under a new name after polling predicted defeat by the DUP, which has made opposition to the current FTA one of its marquee issues.

“Just how damaging this deal is to the 99 percent in both countries has been repeatedly revealed from this latest disgrace of trying to outrun the democratic accountability of Korea’s election to the White House, notably canceling a public bill-signing ceremony after the FTA was passed here,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “By rushing the implementation, the Obama administration is trying to cement in the extreme NAFTA-style corporate investor privileges that candidate Obama pledged would not be included in his trade agreements and that a large majority of Korea’s parliament also opposes.”

 NAFTA-style foreign investor privileges and their private “investor-state” enforcement are among the most controversial aspects of past U.S. trade deals. In fact, this provision is now emerging as a point of major contention in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, where Australia has indicated it will not accept “investor-state” enforcement. The terms of “investor-state” promote job offshoring by requiring host countries to guarantee privileged treatment for foreign investors, forbidding limits on investors’ capital transfers, and providing corporations with a private enforcement of these rights. The system allows corporations to sue governments directly for cash damages in tribunals of three private-sector lawyers who alternate between serving as “judges” and bringing cases against governments for corporations, and who operate under arbitration rules of the World Bank and United Nations.

 The “investor-state” regime eliminates many costs and risks normally associated with relocating production to low-wage developing countries. It also exposes a wide range of common government policies and actions to challenge outside domestic courts. Currently, Chevron is using an “investor-state” tribunal to try to avoid paying $18 billion in environmental cleanup and punitive damages ordered after 18 years of U.S. and Ecuadorian court rulings. Philip Morris is using the system to attack Australian and Uruguayan cigarette plain packaging laws. More than $675 million has been paid by governments to corporations under U.S. pacts’ “investor-state” provisions alone, 70 percent of which has been in attacks on environmental, health and other non-trade policies.

 A greater percentage of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives opposed Obama on the Korea FTA’s passage (and two other trade deals passed the same day) than on any other legislation during his presidency. A higher percentage of House Democrats voted against Obama on this deal than did House Democrats against former President Bill Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) or China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

 The official U.S. International Trade Commission study showed that the Korea FTA is projected to increase the overall U.S. trade deficit, with seven U.S. manufacturing sectors particularly hard hit. The Economic Policy Institute used government trade balance data to project that the pact would cost 159,000 American jobs in its first seven years.

 The pact, signed before the global financial crisis, also includes limits on financial regulation. The Obama administration did not remedy this problem in 2010 when it tweaked auto trade provisions of the pact that had been signed in 2007 by then-President George W. Bush. Citigroup called the Korea FTA “the best financial services chapter negotiated in a free trade agreement to date.”

“The Korea FTA has become the major campaign issue in Korea. And given the growing focus on American manufacturing in the U.S. election, I suspect many American politicians will rue the day that they supported a deal that even the official government studies show will increase our trade deficit and slam seven U.S. manufacturing sectors,” said Wallach.

 

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Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org

USTR May Trade Away Internet Freedom, But We Won't Know Until It's Too Late

At Wednesday's Senate Finance Committee hearing on the Obama administration's 2012 trade agenda, Senator Ron Wyden grilled U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk about the intense secrecy surrounting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. Since the TPP is set to include provisions similar to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) decried by internet freedom advocates, Americans deserve information about such a controversial policy. Sen. Wyden notes that the TPP negotiations are not a matter of national security, but are a matter of policy of broad public concern:

I’m not asking for everything to be published, and certainly, I respect your judgment with respect to, you know, issues that affect national security and classified matters.  But, issues that pertain to freedom and innovation on the net are policy questions, and the American people want the chance to participate.

The hearing heats up at minute 7:02:



Ron Kirk replies with the tired line that trade agreements could not be negotiated without this kind of secrecy, but provides no arguments or evidence to support this assertion. This claim is false on its face. The public is now provided access to negotiating documents of the WTO, arguable the most important venue for trade negotiations. There is no reason why the public should not have access to the same information for the TPP negotiations.

Not only is the text secret during the negotiations, but all TPP countries signed a secret agreement to calssify the negotiating texts for at least four years after the TPP goes into effect. After taking heat for this secret agreement that keeps everything secret, New Zealand was forced to release the text of the secrecy pact. Though neither the public nor members of Congress are permitted to view the negotiating texts, over 600 representatives from corporations have access to the texts, allowing them to steer the negotiations in their favor.

Choking on sugarcoating

Last night, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released its hefty, annual Trade Policy Agenda and Annual Report. This statutorily mandated annual tome offers a good opportunity for Congress and the public to understand what USTR thinks it's doing, or what the agency wants us to think it's doing.

Unfortunately, the Trade Policy Agenda is (once again) an exercise in sugar-coating so extreme that it's surprising it got past Michelle Obama's nutrition advisers.

We've detailed how, after some initial honesty in the 2009 Trade Policy Agenda, USTR by President Obama's second year was back to the same old Bush administration rhetoric on trade policy. The 2012 agenda is in that latter vein as well. Here are just some of the flaws in the latest report:

Trade without a net (calculation). As we've detailed on this blog many times over (see here and here), one of the administration's biggest sins in its recent push for the Korea and Colombia trade deals was its claim that these deals would boost bilateral exports by $12 billion, without noting that the government's own numbers project that the deals will increase job-displacing imports more than job-creating exports. In other words, these deals are projected to be a net negative for job creating exports. We were kinda hoping that the administration might stop misrepresenting its own research once they got Congress to pass these deals. But this seems to be a case of repeating the same incorrect line so many times that you start to believe it's true.

American-made smoke and mirrors. The very first page of the Trade Agenda mentions the "Made in America" theme twice. But USTR is actually pushing the exact opposite of Made in America. Not only have our trade deals meant that imports of products Made-Overseas swamp exports of products Made-in-America, but these pacts also require that the U.S. roll back Buy American requirements for our trading partners. In fact, today, the morning after the Trade Agenda touting Made in America was published, USTR issued a determination stating that Korean-made products will be treated as if they were American for U.S. government procurement purposes.

Korea deal hurts U.S. auto sector. Everyone loves to love on the auto sector these days, and the Trade Agenda paints the Korea deal as a boon to Detroit. But once again, the government's actual numbers show that Korean auto imports will outstrip U.S. auto exports under the deal. Moreover, the harebrained (and high profile in Korea) exemption of U.S. autos from having to meet Korean auto safety and environmental standards will read like a "Do Not Buy American cars for your teen" label to every concerned Korean mother and father.

No mention of significant WTO attacks. The Trade Agenda also celebrates U.S. participation in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2011, but fails to mention the most important news: the U.S. lost not one, not two, but three high-profile WTO attacks on U.S. consumer protection policies. As the majority of WTO members cheered from the sidelines, three panels of nine unelected foreign "judges" ruled that U.S. efforts to reduce teen smoking and inform consumers about the origin of meats and the impact of tuna fishing on dolphins violate WTO rules. These three rulings were the first ever under controversial terms of the WTO's Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, and could open the U.S. up to trade sanctions. (Now, if you bother to look through the full 393 pages of the extended Annual Report, these disputes are mentioned, albeit with insufficient detail or balance to develop an informed view.)

Working hard to export less. Significant USTR resources are being expended on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The Trade Agenda touts U.S. exports to the eight TPP nations (supposedly to point out how awesome the deal will be for U.S. exports), but fails to mention that USTR already put FTAs in place with the four most significant nations on the list (Peru, Chile, Singapore and Australia). Oops.

Don't Let the TPP Prohibit Capital Controls, Say 100 Economists

+++ Joint press release of the Global Development and Environment Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies +++

In advance of Trans-Pacific trade talks, over 100 economists are sending a letter today urging negotiators to promote global financial stability by allowing the use of capital controls.

Signatories include prominent scholars from six of the nine countries currently involved in the Trans-Pacific talks:  Australia, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, New Zealand, and the United States. The other participating countries are Brunei, Singapore, and Vietnam. Trade officials will meet March 1-9 in Melbourne, Australia for the 11th round of negotiations.  Click here for the full statement and list of endorsers.

The economist statement reflects growing consensus that capital controls are legitimate policy tools.  It notes, however, that nearly all U.S. trade agreements “strictly limit the ability of trading partners to deploy capital controls – with no safeguards for times of crisis.”

They recommend that the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement “permit governments to deploy capital controls without being subject to investor lawsuits, as part of a broader menu of policy options to prevent and mitigate financial crises.”

Tucker in Extra!: The Trade Debate That Wasn’t Reported

Our own Todd Tucker has a piece on the media distortion of last year's trade debate in this month's edition of Extra!, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's magazine. Here’s a snippet:

++

In the 16 months leading up to the congressional vote on a set of trade deal with Korea, Colombia and Panama in mid-October, new reporting on the agreements scarcely mentioned that critics existed; when they were acknowledged, their objections were frequently mischaracterized. With media doing little to evaluate misleading claims made by the trade pacts' proponents, all three were approved by Congress by considerable margins.

There were two major points that opponents of the trio of deals – including  labor, environmental, consumer and even Tea Party groups – consistently emphasized in reports, press releases, letters and direct outreach to reporters.

First, these trade deals were modeled on the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a pact whose actual content reporters have historically paid little attention to (Extra!, 11-12/97). The combined text of the three new deals was nearly 4,000 pages; as with NAFTA, the bulk of the provisions were not related to "trade" issues per se, but rather restrict how the U.S. and the other nations might regulate their domestic economies. For instance, corporations are given new rights to challenge environmental and other regulations outside of national court systems, and demand that taxpayers compensate them for regulations' potential impact on profits.

Second, unlike earlier trade deals, even the government's own projections showed that the pacts would increase the U.S. trade deficit (Extra!, 10/11). The projections were produced by the independent U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), which typically produces overly rosy estimates of trade deals' impacts.

But at two of the country's most prominent papers, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, such criticisms were almost entirely absent.

++

The full article is available by subscription.

Bankers Trying to Use NAFTA to Kill Financial Reform

Remember the Volcker Rule? Proposed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and endorsed by five former Secretaries of the Treasury, it aims to prohibit commercial banks from trading stocks, bonds, currency, and derivatives for their own profit. (Customers of banks could still ask their banks to buy and sell these financial instruments if the customers front the cash.) Banks' risky trades played a huge role in the development of the 2008 financial crisis and precipitated the bailout for these overextended banks.

A form of the Volker Rule made it into the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that became law in 2010, but bankers are trying to cripple the rule as regulatory agencies write the details of how the rule will work. The Investment Industry Association of Canada has raised the possibility of attacking the Volker Rule with NAFTA. In a letter sent to the Federal Reserve last month, the Association claims:

[T]he Volcker Rule will clearly interfere and raise the costs of cross-border dealing in Canadian securities. As a result, the Volcker Rule may contravene the NAFTA trade agreement.

The Investment Industry Association of Canada perfectly illustrates how "trade" agreements can reach inside nations' borders and interfere with public interest regulations that have nothing to do with the flow of goods between countries. Since NAFTA was enacted, bankers have gotten much more aggressive in their attempts to block regulation through trade deals. For example, the Korea FTA, passed by Congress in October, included much worse restrictions on financial sector regulations than NAFTA. On top of that, the General Agreement on Trade in Services of the WTO has its own set of rules that conflict with policies on capital controls, bans on risky financial services, size limits on banks, and “firewalls” between banking and investment services.

Necessary efforts to make our financial system stable like the Volker Rule may continue to run into obstacles unless we have a turnaround in trade policy to protect, rather than restrict, the right of governments to regulate in the public interest.

99 Percent Asked to Leave While the 1% Takes Center Stage At Trans-Pacific FTA Hearing

The Occupy movement was in full force in Washington last week, as local activists and members of Trade Justice New York Metro attended the Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) hearings. The activists wanted to tell members of Congress as well as officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) that the Trans-Pacific FTA needs to live up to the high standards the Obama administration promised the American people.

The activists donned t-shirts, with the messages “Don’t Trade Our Lives Away,” “Make Trade Fair for the 99 percent,” and “Got Text?” to represent their opposition to the way the Trans-Pacific FTA has been negotiated thus far. During an intermission between panelists, the activists linked arms and stood by the door to allow the press and members of Congress to read their messages of dissent. The Capitol police photographed the activist attending the hearing and then promptly asked them to leave. While it was clear that the 99% was not wanted at the hearing, the 1% took center stage before the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which oversees trade deals.

First, the panel heard the testimony of Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Demetrios Marantis.

Angela Hoffman, Vice President of Global Integrated Sourcing and Trade for Wal-Mart Stores, also testified in favor of some very one-percenter policies. The Wal-Mart representative stated, “USTR should consider alternative approaches to yard forward provision.” The “yard-forward rule of origin” provisions was presented by members of Congress trying to protect over 470,000 American workers in their districts, who are employed in the US textile industry and cannot compete with the low wages paid to workers in Vietnam and China. Wal-Mart also pushed for greater liberalization of non-tariff regulations such as “limitations on size, geographic locations and merchandise assortment.

One of the concerns presented by the activists is the lack of transparency. While Obama and the USTR stated that they would usher in a new era of transparency, this has not been the case. Instead, the only text of the negotiations that has been released is a memo of understanding signed by the Obama administration and negotiating parties that they will not release the text of the negotiations until 4 years after the deal is concluded or the talks have ended. Activists were also concerned with troubling limitations on access to medicines, which may occur if trade negotiators extend intellectual property rights as well as data exclusivity beyond the May 10, 2007 agreement, which helped to increase access to medicine by allowing low income countries to produce generic medicines under more flexible arrangements.

Members of Congress have also issued letters to the United States Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, to ensure that the new TPP negotiations do not worsen access to medicines for critical programs to combat AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other life-threatening diseases. Yet, it seems as if US trade negotiators hear the voices of the 1% far louder than those of the 99%, and are now considering a medical pricing proposal brought to them by Big Pharma. We have not forgotten the words made when President Obama was simply the Senator from Illinois, fighting for the 99% “Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet.” We will fight to keep this promise even if the 1% do not.

Now They Tell Us: Korea FTA Auto Tweaks Were Useless

In the run-up to the congressional vote on the Korea FTA, the Obama administration claimed that its small tweaks to the Korea FTA's auto provisions would lead to greater exports of U.S. autos to Korea. The relaxation of Korean environmental and safety standards for imported U.S. vehicles was supposed to soften the blow of the clobbering that U.S. automakers would suffer when U.S. tariffs on Korea vehicles were lifted under the FTA. Trusting this claim, Congress passed the Korea FTA last month. Now Bloomberg is reporting that the tweaked auto provisions were all for naught:

When Back Seung Chul bought a new car in Seoul, he didn’t even look at imported models from General Motors Co. (GM), Chrysler Group LLC and Ford Motor Co....

Back’s decision -- he bought a Sportage R sports utility vehicle from Hyundai (005380) affiliate Kia Motors Corp. -- suggests that a new U.S.-Korea trade deal won’t mean a leap in sales in the Asian country for U.S. automakers, which accounted for just 1.1 percent of the market last year. The agreement, likely to take effect Jan. 1 after it was signed by President Lee Myung Bak in Seoul today, calls for the phasing out of South Korea tariffs on U.S. vehicles.

“It is highly unlikely American cars will do well in the Korean auto market,” said Kang Sang Min, a Hanwha Securities Co. analyst in Seoul. “Local automakers like Hyundai and Kia can make good cars and offer quick, convenient service.”

The article also discusses the widespread preference for fuel-efficient vehicles in Korea, since Koreans must buy gasoline at double the price of U.S. consumers. Somewhat ironically, the Obama administration's efforts to have Korea relax its fuel efficiency standards for imported U.S. vehicles will only solidify the negative perceptions of U.S. vehicles in Korea.

In sum, Koreans' preference for domestic vehicles over U.S. vehicles - not safety regulations - is the reason that sales of U.S. vehicles have lagged. We warned about this in our comments to the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) about the methodology that they would use to predict the impact of the FTA upon the U.S. auto sector. Even though the USITC did not adopt the modifications to their methodology that we recommended, its report still predicted that the annual U.S. auto trade deficit would rise by hundreds of millions of dollars under the Korea FTA. Although Bloomberg's reporting on this issue can be viewed as better late than never, it is certainly too late for the thousands of U.S. auto workers who will likely lose their jobs from the Korea FTA.

Election 2012: the Candidates on Trade

(Disclaimer: Public Citizen has no preference among candidates for office.)

With the budget and other scandals dominating political discourse, little space has remained for discussion of trade policy among possible presidential candidates.

To fill this void we decided to examine exactly where the politicians fall on key trade issues:

Bachmann
Although foreign policy hasn’t always been her strong suit, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) is pretty confident about her views on trade. Bachmann interrupted her presidential campaign and broke a streak of 88 absences to cast a vote in favor of the free trade deals with Korea, Colombia and Panama. In a press release she writes that these deals will “spur economic growth… without cost to taxpayers.” Notably, the representative voted against Trade Adjustment Assistance, which would provide support for workers displaced by the deals. Bachmann also voted against Fast Track cancellation in 2008 and in favor of the Peru trade deal in 2007.

In a blog post urging lawmakers to pass the Korea, Colombia and Panama trade deals, Bachmann writes that the “role of free trade as an expression of liberty….signifies the very principles our country was founded upon.” Unfortunately, these trade deals were negotiated under Fast Track, leaving Congress no authority to amend the agreements. (The constitution, or the document our country was actually founded upon, outlines a system of checks and balances granting Congress the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations”).

Paul
A self-proclaimed proponent of free trade in its most pure form, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) opposes NAFTA-style trade deals because they erode U.S. sovereignty and are unconstitutional. He has voted against almost every trade deal that has surfaced during his tenure in office, including Peru, Oman, Bahrain, CAFTA, Australia, Singapore and Chile. Paul has also been an advocate of withdrawing from the World Trade Organization.

US-Korea deal approved over heated opposition

After months of demonstrations and heated debate over the US-Korea trade deal, the Grand National Party called a plenary session and immediately voted on the bill before the opposition legislators could stop them. One lawmaker in particular tried to halt the vote by detonating a tear gas canister (read the details of the vote here). Still, the desperate attempt failed to detain the ruling party from passing the deal 151 to 7. As the New York Times reports,

In the 299-seat National Assembly, 170 members showed up for the vote Tuesday, most of them governing party lawmakers. The opposition members either voted against the bill or abstained.

Watch the video of the scuffle between the ruling party and the opposition:



The vote has prompted massive demonstrations in the street. Our allies in Korea reported that more than five thousand protesters occupied the streets in Seoul. The police aimed water cannons at them and arrested many activists.

Watch the video of the protest here:



Like many Americans who will hold their congressional leaders accountable for their vote on the trade deal, the Korean Alliance against KorUS FTA (KoA) and other opponents of the deal will be launching a campaign against the lawmakers who voted for the agreement in the next general election. The outrage in both countries yet again demonstrates the need to change the current unfair trade model that benefits the 1%.

Showdown in Korea Over Trade Deal's Investor Provisions

Tensions in Korea are still mounting over the US-Korea trade deal. The agreement passed in the US Congress despite the vast majority of Democrats voting against the bill. Now all eyes turn to Korea as Korea’s Democratic Party opposition leaders and the ruling Grand National Party come to a standstill over the Investor-State Dispute clause in the trade pact.

While Korean corporate groups are pushing for speedy ratification of the trade pact, opposition is mounting over what the opposition party sees as a threat to its domestic laws. The Investor State Dispute clause has become a point of contention. The Korea FTA Industry Alliance claims, “It is necessary to protect the $21.7 billion that it has invested in the United States over the past 5 years.” Yet, the opposition party sees the investor state claims as an affront to Korean sovereignty and its ability to enforce domestic policies.

Public Citizen also raised the investor state dispute settlement clause as one of the fundamental flaws in the Korea deal. The Investor state clause would allow for Korean and US multinational investors to have disputes heard before foreign tribunals, despite the fact that both countries have strong domestic court systems. These clauses allow investors to be awarded taxpayer-funded cash compensation if environmental or health policies get in the way of their expected future profits.

In order to ease tensions, President Lee, in a rare move, addressed parliament and has agreed to renegotiate the investor state clause with the US three months after the agreement is ratified. The Democratic opposition party is not backing down and is echoing the sentiment of the thousands of daily protestors that have gathered in Seoul to protest the trade deal. Party spokesman Lee Yong Sup stated that the party will not agree to ratification of the FTA before the investor state clause is renegotiated.

Songs of Protest Occupy APEC

While world leaders met inside well-secured hotels and facilities last weekend during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the streets of Waikiki were occupied with voices of dissent.

First, on Friday, union workers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) went on strike against the phone company Hawaii TelCom. Striking workers protested against the company’s export of Hawaii jobs to Saipan and its demand to reduce crucial worker benefits.  The opportunity to demonstrate the connection to APEC and the current negotiations between the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) countries was not lost on workers and civil-society. IBEW and UNITE-HERE Local 5 sponsored a rally and teach-in on the FTA that was attended by labor groups, international allies and local activists. Hundreds poured in during the rally to denounce APEC’s conference of bankers, corporations and politicians and the secret negotiations seeking to expand a NAFTA of the pacific.

The following day many more protesters and Occupiers marched from Honolulu to the center of Waikiki chanting and voicing their opposition to APEC’s free trade talks. (Read more about the march here.) But the most creative outlet to decry the summit’s intent on corporatizing the world came from renowned Hawaii guitarists and singer Makana. The artist was invited to perform at an APEC gala held inside Hale Koa hotel. He surprised world leaders by not only wearing a t-shirt that read “Occupy with Aloha,” but also by singing protest ballad called “We are the Many.” Check out the performance below:


Read more about Makana occupying APEC here.

Korean Public Still Resilient against US-Korea deal

After the trade deal with Korea was approved in Congress in mid-October, I received a message from one of our close Korean activists and member of the Korean Alliance against the KorUS FTA (KOA). He wrote: Now, it is our turn.

Grassroots activists, civil-society groups, and labor unions (all members of KOA) along with students, OccupySeoul, and dissenting politicians have lived up to their rhetoric. Against all odds, they have successfully delayed the vote on the trade deal using an array of political tactics and civil disobedience.

Last week, opposition National Assembly members from the Democratic Party and Democratic Labor Party occupied the hearing room of the foreign affairs committee, which must make a preliminary vote on the trade pact before it is voted on by National Assembly. In occupying the room, they prevented the committee from voting—sending a clear message of defiance to Korea’s ruling party and key FTA supporters.

On the ground, the Korean Alliance, students, and Occupiers have been holding mass demonstrations and daily candlelight vigils in the streets of Seoul. Several times they have marched in protest and have been confronted by police (see more pictures and videos here).


On November 10th, a disturbing observation from KOA was sent to us, reporting, “At the protest held today near the National Assembly building, the policemen turned a water-cannon to shoot protesters. This caused one of the protester's eardrums to rupture. And 11 were arrested.” (See video here.) One of the protesters arrested is a member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (the equivalent of the AFL-CIO) who visited Washington, DC earlier this year and spoke with members of Congress about the Korea trade deal’s economic impacts on the auto industry.

Although protesters are being confronted by police officials almost on daily basis, the Korean Alliance and other activists will continue to demonstrate. This weekend another mass protest will take place as plans for an international day of solidarity are currently in the works with Occupiers and other groups in the US.

Japan Forces Down Value of Yen, Raising Concerns on Trans-Pacific FTA

Last week the Japanese central bank undertook the single largest intervention in its currency market since at least 1991 when it bought about $100 billion in U.S. dollars. The intervention was designed to push down the value of the yen, and it worked: the value of the yen fell five percent against the dollar, the largest single-day drop since the depths of the financial crisis in October 2008.

Even in ordinary times, this intervention would concern U.S. policy makers, as it will likely boost the U.S. trade deficit with Japan as Japanese imports become cheaper and U.S. exports to Japan rise in price. But now in particular it should give pause to policymakers since Japan has expressed interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks. U.S. trade negotiators will be meeting with their counterparts from other countries to discuss the Trans-Pacific FTA during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this weekend in Honolulu, and Japan's interest in joining is sure to come up. As of yet, there is no sign that the Trans-Pacific FTA will discipline currency manipulation, so the U.S. could end up signing a trade deal with a country that is willing to massively intervene in the currency market, leaving U.S. businesses and workers vulnerable to artificially cheap imports.

Japan has a long history of intervening in its currency market for trade advantage. According to the Congressional Research Service, Japan has intervened heavily in its currency market to hold down the value of the yen in the periods 1976-1978, 1985-1988, 1992-1996, and 1998-2004. During the last period of heavy intervention, stretching from 1998 to 2004, the Japanese yen was undervalued by about 20 percent, or about 600 percent greater than the average U.S. normal trade relations tariff of 3 percent. To put this into perspective, GM estimated that the undervaluation of the yen amounted to a subsidy on Japanese autos sold in the U.S. of about $3,000 per vehicle in 2003. This virtual exchange rate subsidy likely hurt sales of U.S.-made vehicles in the United States and cost jobs.

The latest estimates of the equilibrium yen exchange rate suggest that the yen is undervalued against the dollar by about 10 percent, contributing to the $60 billion U.S. trade deficit with Japan. And those estimates were developed before Japan initiated its latest round of currency intervention. Will U.S. policymakers blindly sign a trade deal with a country that manages its exchange rate for trade advantage, like they did with Korea? Or will they steer the Trans-Pacific FTA negotiations toward the 21st-century fair trade model that the Obama administration has promised?

Sherrod Brown Tosses the Panama FTA

Well, not quite. But, man, that FTA text does look pretty heavy, and like it could put a hurtin' on some of the senators in the room that are against fair trade.

But here's a floor speech from fair trade champion Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on the night the Senate voted on the Panama, Korea and Colombia trade deals. It's about 30 minutes, and a very eloquent description of why these trade deals are no longer primarily about "trade," but about how we regulate our domestic economy. Brown's TRADE Act would go a long way to getting "trade" policy right.

Wallach and Tucker in American Prospect: Parties realign on flawed trade deals

Our own Lori Wallach and Todd Tucker have a piece in the American Prospect today. Here’s a snippet:

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As he gears up for a difficult re-election campaign, President Obama risks losing key swing states that he won in 2008 because of a recent flip-flop on trade commitments…
 
Even the government’s own study, produced by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), showed that these pacts would increase U.S. imports by more than exports…
 
Instead of probing such matters, most mainstream press reports over the entire four-plus year debate simply parroted corporate and Obama-administration talking points.

The missed political storyline, too, was equally astounding. Two-thirds of Democratic House members opposed Obama on the Korea pact and 82 percent who opposed him on the Colombia pact. It's his biggest split with House Democrats thus far. The number who voted against the deal is even greater than the percentage of House Dems who opposed the Patriot Act (63 percent) or the war-funding bills (56 percent). And of course, Obama got nothing in return for the capitulation: Republicans advanced the trade pacts while blocking his second stimulus package. So much for negotiation.

It took Bill Clinton nearly eight years of NAFTA job losses, sellouts, and scandals to have about two-thirds of the House Democrats vote against China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2000. Obama managed to meet and beat that record with his first trade votes. The percentage of Democratic House votes against these deals even surpassed Democrats’ average level of opposition to Republican presidents’ trade initiatives.

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Click here for the full article.

Trade Talks in Peru Meet Strong Opposition

As trade negotiators from the U.S. and eight other Pacific Rim countries met in Lima, Peru this week for Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) talks, Peruvian and global activists criticized the continued secrecy of the talks and the public health implications of recently leaked texts on drug patents and pharmaceutical pricing.

Read Public Citizen's statement about the dangers of the leaked U.S. proposals.

And here's some television coverage from a leading Peruvian news network of a civil society rally outside the hotel where talks are taking place, featuring some of our Peruvian and international allies.

 

 

Recently Revealed ‘Secrecy Pact’ for Trans-Pacific Trade Talks Belies Obama Administration Promises of Transparency in Trade

U.S. Groups Escalate Demands for Access to Trans-Pacific Trade Texts as Global Push for Transparency Builds on Eve of Talks

WASHINGTON, D.C. – After a leaked document revealed that the Obama administration signed a special pact to keep all documents relating to Trans-Pacific Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations secret, a broad array of U.S. groups – including Public Citizen – joined their global counterparts today in demanding an end to the secrecy surrounding the controversial negotiations.

Twenty-two U.S. labor, consumer, faith, environmental and human rights organizations – including the AFL-CIO, Sierra Club, Presbyterian Church (USA) and Public Citizen – sent a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk calling on the U.S. government to implement the administration’s transparency pledges, to take the lead in ending the recently revealed secrecy pact and to release Trans-Pacific FTA negotiating texts. Groups in other participating countries sent similar letters to their governments.

“The fact that negotiators have gone out of their way to execute a special secrecy agreement has made a lot of people wonder just what exactly they are so afraid the press, the public and Congress would see if there was openness,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “While executives from hundreds of corporations have been named ‘official trade advisors’ by the Obama administration and given access to the texts, the people whose lives would be most affected may never get to see what our negotiators are bargaining for – and bargaining away – until it’s all over.”

Trans-Pacific FTA talks have taken place behind closed doors, and none of the draft texts has been released despite President Barack Obama’s promises that the Trans-Pacific FTA will usher in a new era of transparency in trade agreement negotiations and result in a “high-standard, 21st century agreement.” Two-thirds of all House Democrats just voted against Obama on FTAs he submitted that had been negotiated in secret by the previous administration. A greater percentage of House Democrats opposed Obama on the passage of these trade pacts than on any other legislation since he took office.

“Given that texts are released by the World Trade Organization and other negotiating venues in which these countries participate – and after years of Obama administration pledges that its trade policymaking would be open and inclusive – it is really outrageous that they signed a special pact to keep the content of these talks that will affect so many peoples’ lives totally secret,” said Wallach.

Today’s letter comes after an effort earlier this year to obtain access to negotiating texts. Obama administration officials never responded to the past demands, which also were made by major Democratic base organizations. In February, scores of civil society groups in five of the nine countries involved in the negotiations launched a coordinated “release the text” campaign with letters to their trade ministries. Parliamentarians in some countries have become involved in combating the secrecy surrounding the talks. It was not until the September negotiating round in Chicago that negotiators admitted that in May 2010 they had signed a secrecy agreement that would keep all negotiating documents secret for four years after the talks conclude.

“With numerous negotiating texts now established in addition to the investment and financial services chapters, the relevance and urgency of our request has only increased,” the letter said.

Read the full letter, as well as other letters from the international campaign, here. 

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Vast Majority of Dems Abandon President, and Media Misses It

It's typically treated as pretty newsworthy when a majority of a president's own party votes against a signature presidential initiative. Double that when over two-thirds do so. Triple the newsworthiness when it's the first time that magnitude of opposition has occured in a president's tenure.

Quadruple for when talking heads are debating whether elected officials will carry the banner of a wide-ranging new progressive protest movement that has declared its independence from that same president. And quintuple when the president has presented a two-plank carrot-stick deal with Republicans - controversial trade deals that won't create jobs plus stimulus spending that will - and when the Republicans move forward with the job-killing plank. But the job-creating plank? Not so much.

This describes precisely what happened with last night's votes to expand NAFTA-style deals to Korea, Colombia and Panama. But you wouldn't know it from any of this morning's press coverage of the vote, which lauded the "bipartisanship" of a deal that was supported by only a tiny cohort of corporate Democrats.

This is deeply misguided, as Lori Wallach noted over at FireDogLake,

"Today a larger share of House Democrats voted against a Democratic president on trade than ever before. It took Bill Clinton nearly eight years of NAFTA job losses, sell outs and scandals to have (not even) two-thirds of the House Democrats vote against him on trade."

Obama managed to do the same in three, getting Democratic opposition nearly 20 percentage points higher than Clinton ever did.Over 82 percent of Democrats opposed the Colombia FTA, while over two-thirds opposed the Korea FTA and over 64 percent opposed the Panama FTA. Even a majority of the New Democrats - the most pro-NAFTA grouping in the party - opposed. These percentages go well beyond the previous high-water mark of House Dem revolt from the president (the February vote on the Patriot Act).

Why were Dems so opposed? The deals won't do anything to help the jobs crisis, and could make things worse. On top of that, they contain hundreds of pages of non-trade provisions that put obstacles in the way of re-regulation of Wall Street and environmental protection. Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine), a leading Blue Dog, lays out the analysis in this compelling speech that takes the White House to task.

Democrats' declaration of independence wasn't the only thing that was missed in the coverage. The media also missed the storyline of the Tea Party's abandoning of its principles. Candidate Rand Paul, for instance, railed against the WTO as as an intrusion on U.S. sovereignty. Countless House Tea Party candidates ran paid ads attacking job offshoring, helping them make key inroads among working class voters. Yet virtually the entirety of the Tea Party backed candidates sided with the president for job offshoring deals.

Indeed, there has always been several dozen Republicans who could be counted on to vote against unfair trade policy - even in super-close votes like Bush's push in 2005 for CAFTA, which passed by two votes. Fast forward to 2011, when ONLY SIX Republicans voted against the Panama FTA. This is a historic shift for a party who has always had a more trade-skeptical segment going back centuries.

These political shifts are likely to have major consequences in the upcoming elections. Many Democrats have - like the movement on the streets - declared their political independence. Will it be enough to make up for being down-ticket from a president who flip-flopped on his own campaign pledges to overhaul U.S. trade policy? The world will be watching.

(P.S. The media also was also mum that the president was misrepresenting the government's own studies on the likely economic impact of the deal. These studies, unlike similar studies for all earlier trade deals, showed an increase in the trade deficit. For virtually the entire four-year debate on the bills, the media mentioned only the projected export increase, without discussing the projected import increase. This was Very valuable political cover, but not particularly good reporting. But that's another story.)

Job-Killing Trade Deals Pass Congress Amidst Record Democratic Opposition

Obama and Tea Party Flip Flop on Fair Trade Campaign Commitments

Statement of Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

With nine percent unemployment and Americans desperate for job creation, it is unconscionable that President Obama and House Republicans would push through a trio of NAFTA-style job-killing trade agreements that even the government’s own studies show will increase the U.S. trade deficit.

This represents a complete flip-flop for President Obama, who won crucial swing states by pledging to overhaul our flawed trade policies. So it is no surprise that a sizeable majority of Democrats in Congress voted against these agreements, against Obama and for American jobs.

Today a larger share of House Democrats voted against a Democratic president on trade than ever before. It took Bill Clinton nearly eight years of NAFTA job losses, sell outs and scandals to have nearly two-thirds of the House Democrats vote against him on trade.

Given the strong Democratic opposition, ultimately it was the Tea Party GOP freshmen who passed these job-killing deals despite their campaign commitments at home to stand up for Main Street businesses, against more job offshoring and for Buy American requirements. The three pacts explicitly ban Buy America procurement policies. The Korea FTA is projected to increase the trade deficit, with seven U.S. industrial sectors hardest hit and job losses of 159,000 in its first seven years.

Members of Congress that voted for these job-killing agreements – backed by Wall Street and America’s most notorious job-offshoring corporations and harmful to American workers, small business and consumers – will face a reckoning as the damage of these pacts hits home. We promise to closely track and publicize every development.

Everyone is asking what the Obama administration could have been thinking to push the sorts of NAFTA-style trade deals that polls show majorities of Democrats, Independents and even GOP voters oppose as job killers, especially after the lesson of the 1993 NAFTA vote, when a Democratic president’s blurring of the distinctions between the parties on trade and jobs caused a disgruntled base to stay home. 

Every election cycle, more Democrats and GOP are campaigning against these sorts of NAFTA-style trade pacts. Given this and the high unemployment rate, it will be very rough for those officials who then betrayed folks at home and voted for these deals loved only by Wall Street and job-offshoring corporations.

Record of Congressional Democratic Opposition to Democratic Presidents on Trade Pacts

- 82.3% of House Democrats opposed the Colombia FTA (158 Democrats against, 31 for)

- 67.7% of House Democrats opposed the Korea FTA  (130 Democrats against, 59 for)

- 64.1% of House Democrats opposed the Panama FTA (123 Democrats against, 66 for)

- 60.6% of Democrats opposed NAFTA (1993)

- 35% opposed the WTO (1994)

- 65.56% opposed China PNTR (2000)

 

Record of Congressional Democratic Opposition to GOP Presidents on Trade Pacts

- 62.6% opposed the Chile FTA (2003)

- 62.14% opposed the Singapore FTA (2003)

- 41.3% opposed the Australia FTA (2004)

- 39.32% opposed the Morocco FTA (2004)

- 92.6% opposed the Central America Free Trade Agreement (2005)

- 40.4% opposed the Bahrain FTA (2005)

- 87.6% opposed the Oman FTA (2006)

- slightly more than half opposed the Peru FTA (2007)

House Dems Take White House to Task

Check out this powerful speech by Rep. Mike Michaud (D-Maine), a fair trade champion, sayin' stuff that needs to be said:

 

Livetweeting the Unfair Trade Pact Trifecta

Follow us on Twitter @pcgtw.Going on now!

Also, check out Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's take on the press coverage around the FTAs, and Glenn Hurowitz over at HuffPost on the awful political calculus the adminstration made by taking up these deals.

Obama Shifts Away From Jobs Message to Promote Bush-Signed Trade Pacts Projected by Official Government Studies to Increase Trade Deficit

Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

It is bizarre that President Barack Obama has switched from his long-awaited focus on jobs to spending effort passing three George W. Bush-signed, NAFTA-style trade deals that official government studies show will increase our trade deficit even as polls show most Americans oppose NAFTA-style trade pacts and recognize that they kill American jobs.

The only way these deals will pass is if congressional GOP lawmakers expose themselves to the foreseeable election attack ads and provide President Obama almost all of the votes; most congressional Democrats will oppose these deals, which are loved by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and despised by the Democratic base groups.

Apparently, the Obama team has a way to win re-election that does not involve Ohio or other industrial swing states. We saw with NAFTA in 1993 the dire political consequences of a Democratic president blurring distinctions between the parties on this third-rail issue of trade and jobs. And unlike NAFTA, this time, even official government studies show that these pacts will increase our trade deficit.

Trade disaster: Congress votes tomorrow

A message from Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch

You don't hear from me often. Over the past year, I have spend most of my time on Capitol Hill, meeting with members of Congress, educating them about our current flawed trade policy and how we can create a trade model that works.

I have been working to get a majority on Congress to say NO to the three devastating NAFTA-style trade deals signed by Pres. Bush that now Pres. Obama is trying to ram through Congress.

But today, I urgently need a favor from you. It will take about five minutes. Congress will vote on these job-killing, unsafe-import-flooding deals on Wednesday. I need you to pick up the phone and call 1-800-718-1008 right now to stop the three unfair trade deals with Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

Take 5 minutes to save jobs. Dial 1-800-718-1008 and tell your Representative to vote NO on all three flawed trade deals.

Here’s why:

• The Korea trade deal is the largest offshoring deal of its kind since NAFTA. If approved, the deal will displace 159,000 American jobs in the first seven years. Even the official U.S. government study on the Korea pact says that it would increase our trade deficit, and it hits the "jobs of the future” sectors hardest – solar, high speed trains, computers. [Learn more]
• We should have never even discussed a new trade deal with Colombia, the world capital for violence against workers. More unionists are assassinated every year than in the rest of the world combined. In 2010, 51 trade unionists were assassinated. Do you think we would consider a trade deal with a county where 51 CEOS were murdered? So far in 2011, another 22 have been killed, despite Colombia’s heralded new "Labor Action Plan.” [Learn more]
• The Panama agreement has many of the same problems as the other two deals -- undercutting the reregulation of the big banks and speculators who destroyed our economy and empowering foreign investors to attack U.S. health, safety, labor and environmental laws before foreign tribunals. But, Panama is also one of the world’s largest tax havens. There, rich U.S. individuals and over 400,000 corporations take advantage of the offshore financial center, many dodging paying the taxes our communities desperately need. This FTA would undercut our current tools to fight tax dodging and money laundering. [Learn more]

Stop the trade deals that replicate the failed policies of the past. Call your Representative today.

Behind the scenes and throughout the country, our team has done everything we can do to try and get through to the leaders in Congress to stop these trade agreements. But it looks like many of our leaders in Washington—both Democrats and Republicans—are siding with corporate lobbyists instead of learning from the experience of working Americans.

YOU know the reality of these trade deals better than corporate lobbyists—and Congress needs to listen to you.

Please call 1-800-718-1008 right now.

Speak out with millions of Americans against the job-killing trade deals that only reward fat cats, off-shore our jobs and undermine our environmental and financial stability safeguards.

Lori Wallach on HuffPo: "Obama Flip-Flopped Off Trade Cliff"

Check out Lori Wallach's latest piece on the Huffington Post.

 

Obama Flip-Flopped Off Trade Cliff

"Apparently, Obama has a plan for winning re-election that does not involve Ohio... oh, and he is tired of talking about job CREATION..."

Read the entire piece at the Huffington Post.