On the U.S.-Japan Summit Statement, Regarding TPP

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

“The U.S.-Japan summit was viewed as the do-or-die moment to revive TPP negotiations after years of missed deadlines, unbending opposition by other nations to many U.S. proposals, deadlocks on scores of TPP issues, and Congress’ refusal to grant President Obama trade authority.

A decision whether to hold another high-level TPP ministerial meeting tentatively slated for May was riding on the United States and Japan resolving a subset of market access issues. Shortly before President Obama left Japan, the country’s economy minister, Akira Amari, announced that the outcome was "not a basic accord although there was progress.”

Bizarrely, the official Summit Statement called the non-deal a “milestone in the TPP negotiations” and called on other TPP countries “to take the necessary steps to conclude the agreement.”  

Without knowing what market access gains they may achieve in return, other TPP nations have been loath to even consider high-stakes tradeoffs relating to U.S. demands in TPP to extend medicine patents, limit financial regulations,  discipline state-owned enterprises, enforce labor and environmental standards, limit financial regulation and more that are animating growing public and legislator opposition in many TPP nations.  

After months of non-stop U.S-Japan bilateral TPP negotiations and now President Obama and Prime Minister Abe not announcing a breakthrough, TPP should be ready for burial. Instead, like some horror movie monster that will not die, TPP is being animated by a broad coalition of powerful corporate interests and we are told talks will continue but it remains unclear when and how.”

A checklist of all of the unresolved TPP issues can be viewed here. 

As Obama Visits TPP Countries, New Obama Administration Report Targets Their Public Interest Policies as “Trade Barriers” to be Eliminated

As President Obama leaves on his Asia tour today to try to paper over the deep divisions that have bewitched the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, he will likely refrain from reiterating the criticisms his administration recently levied against the sensitive domestic policies of the TPP governments he will be visiting.  

The 2014 National Trade Estimate Report, published earlier this month by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), targets financial, privacy, health, and other public interest policies of each TPP nation as "trade barriers" that the U.S. government seeks to eliminate. The report offers unusual insight into why negotiations over the sweeping, 12-nation deal are contentious and have repeatedly missed deadlines for completion.

The policies of other TPP nations criticized by the 384-page USTR report include New Zealand’s popular health programs to control medicine costs, an Australian law to prevent the offshoring of consumers’ private health data, Japan’s pricing system that reduces the cost of medical devices, Vietnam’s post-crisis regulations requiring banks to hold adequate capital, Peru’s policies favoring generic versions of expensive biologic medicines, Canada’s patent standards requiring that a medicine’s utility should be demonstrated to obtain monopoly patent rights, and Mexico’s “sugary beverage tax” and “junk food tax.”

The Obama administration also targets seven of the 11 TPP partners, including majority-Muslim countries like Malaysia and Brunei, for restricting the importation or sale of alcohol, takes issue with several TPP countries’ restrictions on the importation of tobacco, and laments Vietnam’s restriction on the importation of “a variety of hazardous waste items.”

The Obama administration report calls for some TPP nations to adopt copyright enforcement measures akin to those proposed under the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was defeated in the U.S. Congress. For example, the report notes that the Obama administration “has also urged Chile … to amend its Internet service provider liability regime to permit effective action against any act of infringement of copyright and related rights.” The report also criticizes data privacy policies, describing Canadian privacy rules as too “restrictive” and Japan’s Privacy Act as “unnecessarily burdensome.”

The report attacks six TPP nations’ rules requiring foreign takeovers of major domestic firms, including banks, to be vetted by the government. Also listed as “investment barriers” are Malaysia and New Zealand’s requirements that foreign investors obtain permission before acquiring land, and Peru and Mexico’s prohibitions on foreign acquisition of land along their national borders.

The report also critiques government procurement rules in several TPP nations that are similar to the U.S. Buy American policy in giving preference to domestic producers. This includes Malaysia’s bumiputera policies, preferences for domestically produced medicines in Vietnam’s hospitals and Japan’s preferences for local companies when contracting major taxpayer-funded construction projects.

The USTR report further accuses some TPP governments of broad corruption or even incompetence. For example, the report states that two of Peru’s three federal branches of government lack the “impartiality” or “expertise” required to fulfill their responsibilities.

Here are some of the domestic policies in Malaysia and Japan -- the two TPP nations that Obama will soon be visiting -- that the report singles out for criticism: 

Administration Desperate to Announce Breakthrough on TPP in Japan, But Congress not Buying Economic or Foreign Policy Sales Pitch and Won’t Give Obama Fast Track

Public Citizen Publishes Updated List of TPP Issues That Require Resolution for a Deal to Be Made; List Largely Unchanged Since 2/14 Singapore TPP Ministerial

A major goal of President Barack Obama’s Asia trip is to revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) after four years of negotiations have resulted in talks deadlocked over scores of issues and growing U.S. congressional and public opposition. 

Whether or not any real deal is made, a “breakthrough” almost certainly will be announced because the U.S-Japan summit is viewed as a do-or-die moment to inject momentum into the TPP process. Familiarity with kabuki theatre may be useful in interpreting the summit outcomes on TPP.

Obama arrives in Asia without trade authority and with TPP partners Japan and Malaysia aware that the U.S Congress, which has exclusive constitutional authority over trade policy, is increasingly skeptical about the TPP. January 2014 legislation to enact Fast Track authority was dead on arrival in the U.S. House of Representatives. Already in late 2013, 180 House members had announced they would never authorize the Fast Track process again; more announced opposition when the bill was submitted.

The prospect that Obama cannot deliver on whatever “compromises” he may make was heightened by a congressional sign-on letter circulating last week calling for Japan to be thrown out of TPP negotiations unless it agreed to eliminate its agricultural tariffs and major U.S. agribusiness interests calling for the same.

But at the same time, there is enormous pressure for Obama and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to announce a breakthrough. Months of non-stop U.S-Japan bilateral TPP negotiations and ministerial-level meetings have failed to overcome sensitive agricultural and auto market access issues. Without knowing what market access gains they may achieve in return, other TPP nations have been loath to consider high-stakes tradeoffs relating to U.S. demands in TPP to extend medicine patents, limit financial regulations,  discipline state-owned enterprises, enforce labor and environmental standards, limit financial regulation.  

A checklist of these unresolved issues is included at the bottom of this memo. Despite the unprecedented secrecy surrounding the TPP negotiations, leaks of TPP documents are fueling opposition in many TPP countries as the pact’s prospective threats are revealed.  As a result, the other TPP nation governments face considerable domestic political liability for acceding to various U.S. TPP demands.

Finally, as the economic sales pitch for the TPP has faced increasing incredulity in Congress, TPP proponents have shifted to the foreign policy arguments-of-last-report used to sell flagging trade deals. The president’s Asia trip is the best possible platform to make arguments that distract from the TPP’s merits and shift the focus to broad brush narratives that connect to congressional and public anxieties about a rising China.

A report released last week by Public Citizen reveals that nearly identical foreign policy arguments have consistently proven baseless when used to sell trade deals over the past two decades. The report reviews foreign policy claims made to promote the TPP, ranging from the absurd to the counterfactual, to those that repeatedly have been disproved by the actual outcomes of similar claims made for past pacts. Repeatedly, Congress has approved trade deals based on dire predictions that failure to do so would mean diminished U.S. power,  the takeover of important markets by competitors or foreign instability, only to find that many of those predictions came true in spite of, and sometimes even because of, pacts’ enactment.

Among the report’s findings, echoed last week in a call with members of Congress and Asia policy expert Clyde Prestowitz:

• Past free trade agreements (FTAs) failed to counter the rising economic influence of China (or Japan): From 2000 to 2011, U.S. FTAs with eight Latin American countries were sold as bulwarks against foreign economic influence in the hemisphere. The U.S. pacts were implemented and China’s exports to Latin America soared more than 1,280 percent, from $10.5 billion to more than $145 billion, while the U.S. saw only modest export growth. The U.S.-produced share of Latin America’s imported goods fell 36 percent, while China’s share increased 575 percent. Similarly, under the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) first 20 years, the U.S.-produced share of Mexico’s imported goods dropped from almost 70 percent to less than 50 percent, while China’s share rose more than 2,600 percent. Similarly, after hysterical claims that Japan would seize U.S. market share in Latin America by signing its own free trade agreements unless the United States approved NAFTA and other FTAs, such Japanese FTAs were signed anyway.

• The TPP will not “contain” or isolate China: U.S. officials have repeatedly welcomed China as a prospective TPP member. How can the TPP isolate China if China can become a member? Administration officials note that China could join only if it agreed to the TPP’s rules, but those rules would give Chinese products duty-free access to the U.S. market and new foreign investor rights and privileges that would enhance China’s relative economic might within the United States. This may explain China’s statements of increased interest in joining the TPP. The TPP will not empower Pacific allies to act as a bulwark against Chinese influence, given that many of those nations see China as a partner. The report cites officials from TPP countries stating that if the TPP were to become a China-containment tool, they would no longer participate in TPP negotiations. 

• The TPP is not a vehicle to impose “our” rules vs. China imposing “theirs”: The TPP’s actual terms undercut the false, but conveniently scary, dichotomy posed as a choice between using TPP to impose “our” rules internationally or living with rules set by China. This argument presumes the TPP to represent “our” rules, but in fact many of the TPP’s terms reflect the narrow special interests of the 600 official U.S. corporate trade advisors that have shaped them. TPP investment rules would promote more U.S. job offshoring and further gut the U.S. manufacturing base that is essential for our national security and domestic infrastructure. TPP procurement rules would ban Buy American policies that reinvest our tax dollars to create economic growth and jobs at home. TPP service sector rules would raise our energy prices and undermine our energy independence and financial stability. TPP drug and copyright terms would raise health care costs and thwart innovation. The study summarizes a recent U.S. Department of Defense report that concludes that U.S. deindustrialization poses a threat to national security and our nation’s economic wellbeing.

TPP deal vs. kabuki checklist - to actually have a TPP deal, these issues must be resolved:

Corporate Group Launches “Fact-Based” Trade Series, Avoids Facts

When launching a new series of materials touted as “fact-based analysis,” it is unwise to begin with a distortion of the facts.  But that’s the inauspicious move taken today by the Emergency Committee for American Trade (ECAT), a corporate alliance that has launched a new “Trade Notes” series with some confused data on the record of U.S. trade under “free trade” agreements (FTAs).  

Official government data show that U.S. trade deficits have ballooned with FTA partners while actually diminishing with the rest of the world.  As we reported recently, the aggregate U.S. trade deficit with FTA partners has increased by more than $147 billion, or 443%, since the FTAs were implemented.  In contrast, the aggregate deficit with all non-FTA countries (even including China) has decreased by more than $130 billion, or 16%, since 2006 (the median entry date of existing FTAs). 

Two factors explain this proclivity toward trade deficits with FTA partner countries.  First, imports from those countries have spiked – an unsurprising result of a trade model that has incentivized offshoring and pitted U.S. workers against their lower-wage counterparts abroad.  Second, and perhaps more surprising, is that U.S. export growth to FTA partner countries, despite all promises to the contrary, has been slower than to non-FTA countries. Indeed, 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 30 percent over the last decade.

But that isn’t the takeaway from ECAT’s Trade Notes debut today.  In response to “some commentators [who] have argued that trade agreements drive growth in U.S. trade deficits,” ECAT asserts, “recent data suggest that trade agreements, on the whole, actually help to improve U.S. trade balances with FTA partner countries.” 

How can ECAT make this claim?  First, they take oil and gas out of the trade data. Echoing the refrain of many FTA proponents that burgeoning FTA deficits are just about oil imports, ECAT displays a chart that appears to show aggregate non-oil trade deficits with FTA partners diminishing and then turning into surpluses over the last decade.

But the official government data beg to differ.  Even if we remove oil and gas, the non-oil U.S. goods trade balance last year with all U.S. FTA partners was a $100 billion deficit, not a surplus. And while ECAT claims that the non-oil trade balance with FTA countries has been improving, the non-oil U.S. trade deficit with these 20 countries was larger last year than in any of the last six years. 

What, then, explains the gulf between the data and ECAT’s claim of a growing non-oil surplus with FTA countries?  The primary explanation is that ECAT – like the U.S. Trade Representative and fellow corporate conglomerates such as the Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Business Roundtable, etc. – has decided to count foreign-made exports as U.S. exports.  As we’ve explained time and again, determining FTAs’ impacts on U.S. jobs requires counting only U.S.-made exports.  Instead, ECAT also counts “re-exports” – goods made abroad that are shipped through the United States en route to a final destination.  As re-exports to FTA partner countries have been steadily increasing, counting them in trade data – as ECAT does – has had an increasingly distortionary effect on the true record of FTAs (e.g. you can make the NAFTA deficit look half as big simply by counting foreign-made re-exports as U.S. exports). 

In announcing today’s new Trade Note series, ECAT President Calman Cohen stated, “ECAT member companies recognize the importance of maintaining a fact-based dialogue on the contribution of trade and investment to our national economic interest.  ECAT seeks to make a constructive contribution to that dialogue through its new Trade Notes series.”

We’re all for contributions to fact-based dialogue.  Let’s hope we start seeing some from ECAT.  

TPP Foreign Policy Arguments Mimic False Claims Made for Past Pacts

New Report Debunks Notion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a Bulwark Against China, Catalogues Outcomes of Similar Geopolitical Claims Made About Pacts Since NAFTA 

As President Barack Obama’s Asia trip looms and proponents of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) increasingly pitch the deal as a bulwark against China’s rising influence, a report released today by Public Citizen reveals that nearly identical foreign policy arguments have consistently proven baseless when used to sell trade deals over the past two decades. The report reviews foreign policy claims made to promote the TPP, ranging from the absurd to the counterfactual, to those that repeatedly have been disproved by the actual outcomes of similar claims made for past pacts.

“The same old foreign policy arguments get trotted out to sell trade agreements after the economic case fails,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Repeatedly, Congress has approved bad deals based on dire predictions that failure to do so would mean diminished U.S. power,  the takeover of important markets by competitors or foreign instability, only to find that many of those predictions came true in spite of, and sometimes even because of, pacts’ enactment.”

While U.S. concerns about the implications of China’s rising economic power and influence are legitimate, the notion that the establishment – or not – of any specific U.S. trade agreement would control this process is contradicted by the record. Public Citizen’s study examines the outcomes of claims that past trade pacts would counter economic gains by Japan, Europe and China in trade-partner markets; strengthen U.S. foreign policy allies or thwart enemies; and improve U.S. national security.

Among the report’s findings:

• Past free trade agreements (FTAs) failed to counter the rising economic influence of China (or Japan): From 2000 to 2011, U.S. FTAs with eight Latin American countries were sold as bulwarks against foreign economic influence in the hemisphere. The U.S. pacts were implemented and China’s exports to Latin America soared more than 1,280 percent, from $10.5 billion to more than $145 billion, while the U.S. saw only modest export growth. The U.S.-produced share of Latin America’s imported goods fell 36 percent, while China’s share increased 575 percent. Similarly, under the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) first 20 years, the U.S.-produced share of Mexico’s imported goods dropped from almost 70 percent to less than 50 percent, while China’s share rose more than 2,600 percent. Similarly, after hysterical claims that Japan would seize U.S. market share in Latin America by signing its own free trade agreements unless the United States approved NAFTA and other FTAs, such Japanese FTAs were signed anyway.

• The TPP will not “contain” or isolate China: The report cites repeated statements by U.S. officials welcoming China as a prospective TPP member. How can the TPP isolate China if China is welcome to become a member? Administration officials note that China could join only if it agreed to the TPP’s rules, but those rules would give Chinese products duty-free access to the U.S. market and new foreign investor rights and privileges that would enhance China’s relative economic might within the United States. This may explain China’s statements of increased interest in joining the TPP. The TPP will not empower Pacific allies to act as a bulwark against Chinese influence, given that many of those nations see China as a partner. The report cites officials from TPP countries stating that if the TPP were to become a China-containment tool, they would no longer participate in TPP negotiations. 

• The TPP is not a vehicle to impose “our” rules: The proposed TPP rules undercut the false, but conveniently scary, dichotomy used to sell the TPP: that we have a choice between using the pact to impose “our” rules internationally or living with rules set by China. This argument presumes the TPP to represent  “our” rules, but in fact many of the TPP’s terms reflect the narrow special interests of the 600 official U.S. corporate trade advisors that have shaped them. TPP investment rules would promote more U.S. job offshoring and further gut the U.S. manufacturing base that is essential for both our national security and domestic infrastructure. TPP procurement rules would ban Buy American policies that reinvest our tax dollars to create economic growth and jobs at home. TPP service sector rules would raise our energy prices and undermine our energy independence and financial stability. TPP drug and copyright terms would raise health care costs and thwart innovation. The study summarizes a recent U.S. Department of Defense report that concludes that U.S. deindustrialization poses a threat to national security and our nation’s economic wellbeing.

“Some politicians and pundits seem to hope that raising geopolitical issues that the TPP cannot affect will activate Americans’ anxieties about a rising China and distract from the real issue: Would the TPP benefit most Americans?” Wallach said. 

The report also catalogues decades of trade-pact foreign policy claims, revealing that recent administration arguments for the TPP echo, nearly word-for-word, the sales pitches used for past pacts. For example, Vice President Joe Biden recently called the TPP “a symbol of American staying power,” mirroring the 1993 NAFTA pitch by then-U.S. Rep. Dan Glickman (D-Kan.): “NAFTA has become a critical and yes, symbolic test of U.S. leadership.”

The many unfounded foreign policy claims that repeatedly have been used to push past FTAs and that are being recycled today to pitch the TPP include:

• NAFTA: In 1993, then-U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) advocated for NAFTA, saying it would “contribute to the growth and the maturity of the Mexican economy and thereby alleviate some of the potential for social and political explosions which could set back progress.” But after 20 years of NAFTA, Mexico’s average growth rate ranked 18th out of the 20 Latin America nations. Indeed, NAFTA contributed to significant poverty and instability within Mexico by enabling a flood of subsidized U.S. corn that eliminated the livelihoods of 2.5 million Mexican farmers and agricultural workers. The mass dislocation contributed to a doubling of migration to the United States in NAFTA’s first seven years and fueled the violence of Mexico’s spiraling drug war. NAFTA failed to prevent the “social and political explosions” Kerry feared; if anything, it contributed to them.

• CAFTA: In 2005, then-U.S. Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) argued for the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) by saying: “Hugo Chavez moves Venezuela closer and closer to Castro every day. These regimes tend to work to spread their brutal methods and totalitarian philosophies, trying to infect the rest of Latin America and we simply cannot let them succeed. … By linking [Central America’s] economies with democratic capitalism, CAFTA will help gird these nations against the threats at their door.” Soon after CAFTA took effect, most CAFTA nations established close economic and political ties with Venezuela – the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua all signed pacts with Venezuela to receive subsidized oil soon after CAFTA took effect.

• Colombia FTA: In 2011, then-U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis (R-Ky.) pushed for passage of the Colombia FTA by arguing, “The trade agreement with Colombia will advance our national security interests by providing Colombians with alternatives to the drug trade.” Davis’ argument directly contradicts that of Colombia’s own Minister of Agriculture. Before the FTA was passed, the minister predicted that if the deal took effect, Colombian farmers would be unable to compete with an FTA-enabled influx of subsidized U.S. crops and “would have no more than three options: migration to the cities or other countries (especially the United States or bordering countries), leaving to work in drug cultivation zones, or affiliating with illegal armed groups.” In August 2013, thousands of Colombian farmers, facing falling incomes and displacement, blocked highways, launched a national strike and called for the repeal of the FTA.

“The TPP should be debated on the merits of its actual provisions and their likely outcomes, not on the basis of rehashed foreign policy talking points and national security hyperbole that have proved false in the past and that bear little connection to the actual TPP text,” said Wallach. 

Colombia's Anti-Union Violence Remains Rampant after Three Years of the FTA-Enabling Labor Action Plan

Three years ago, the Obama administration signed a Labor Action Plan (LAP) with the Colombian government, promising that it would help rectify rampant labor rights abuses in Colombia, a country in which more than 3,000 unionists have been murdered since 1977.

Six months after its announcement, the LAP served as a fig leaf for the controversial Colombia “free trade” agreement (FTA), enabling the deal’s passage in the U.S. Congress. Trying to fend off criticism for pitting U.S. workers against Colombian workers who faced widespread labor abuses, the few Democratic members of Congress who voted for the deal pointed to the LAP as a solution to Colombia's labor rights crisis.  

Unions and congressional labor rights defenders in Colombia and the United States warned at the time of the FTA’s passage that the LAP would fail to alter the on-the-ground reality of anti-union repression. 

Sadly, they were right. 

In the three years since the LAP was unveiled, 73 Colombian unionists have been murdered, according to a report released today by Colombia’s National Union School, a group recognized by the LAP as an authoritative source of monitoring data. There were four more unionist murders in 2013 than in 2012.

Colombia’s workers have also endured 31 murder attempts and 953 death threats since the LAP was announced.  These crimes have not resulted in any captures, trials, or convictions. The overall impunity rate for unionist murders from 1977 through the present is 87%, while impunity for anti-union death threats stands at 99.9%. 

Colombia’s unions and the National Union School conclude that the decision to sign the LAP “was taken by the Colombian government as a step toward unfreezing the FTA with the United States rather than as an institutional mechanism to promote real protection of the labor and union rights that Colombian workers have lacked for so long.”

The same, unfortunately, could probably be said about some members of the U.S. Congress who were more interested in the LAP’s ability to provide political cover for the polemical Colombia FTA than its ability to provide relief to Colombia’s repressed workers.

Other members of Congress who supported the LAP with a sincere desire to improve the labor rights situation in Colombia (despite warnings from on-the-ground experts that the LAP would fail to do so) must feel betrayed by the administration officials who promised the LAP would herald such improvement.

Now the administration is making similar promises in pushing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries, including Vietnam.  While Vietnam does not share Colombia's history of widespread unionist murders, workers in Vietnam are prohibited from forming independent unions and are paid an average minimum wage of 52 cents per hour. And Vietnam's apparel industry, which could gain greater access to the U.S. market through the TPP, relies on forced labor and child labor.  

Administration officials are arguing, as they did in pushing the LAP and the Colombia FTA, that the TPP will provide an opportunity to curb labor rights abuses in Vietnam. Will the members of Congress who supported the ill-fated LAP once again buy into such promises?  Or will they heed the lesson of the ongoing repression faced by Colombia's workers?  

Data Debunk for USTR Froman’s Thursday Committee Hearing

In recent weeks, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has begun making outlandish claims about past U.S. trade agreements. These claims are not supported by the official  U.S. government trade data. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) recent assertions that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has led to a U.S. trade surplus with Mexico and Canada and that the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) has increased U.S. manufacturing exports to Korea have been met with incredulity. These pacts’ recent anniversaries have spotlighted how the trade pact model on which the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is premised has led to massive trade deficits.

The premise that NAFTA would improve our trade balance was the basis for NAFTA proponents’ promises that the pact would create U.S. jobs. Many of the same government and industry sources made the same claims to sell the 2011 U.S.-Korea FTA. These pacts’ dismal outcomes – slow or even negative export growth, rising imports and burgeoning trade deficits – are intensifying congressional opposition to Fast Track authority for the TPP.

Rather than altering the trade agreement model to avoid repeating these outcomes, USTR appears intent on trying to change the data. To generate the outlandish claims about NAFTA and the Korea FTA, USTR employs a smorgasbord of data tricks to look out for in Froman’s testimony Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee:

USTR’s Biggest Distortion: Counting Foreign-Made “Transshipped” Products as U.S. Exports

USTR’s primary data distortion is the decision not to use the official U.S. government trade data provided by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC).^[i] Instead, USTR cites data that include what are called “re-exports.” These are goods made abroad that are simply shipped through the United States en route to a final destination. (The USTR figures would include as U.S. exports goods taken off a truck from Canada in California’s Port of Long Beach then shipped to their final destination in Korea, or goods shipped from China, unloaded in a California port and trucked to Mexico.) Each month, USITC removes re-exports, which do not support U.S. production jobs, from the raw data gathered by the Census Bureau.^[ii] But USTR uses the uncorrected data, inflating the actual U.S. export figures.

• Using the official USITC data, U.S. export growth to countries with which we do not have FTAs has been 30 percent faster than to our FTA partners over the past decade.^[iii]

• The USITC data show U.S. average monthly goods exports to Korea are down 11 percent, imports from Korea have increased and the U.S. average monthly trade deficit with Korea has swelled 47 percent since the enactment of the Korea FTA.^[iv] The total U.S. trade deficit with Korea under the FTA’s second year is projected to be $8.6 billion higher than in the year before the deal.^[v]  Using the administration’s current export-to-job ratio, this drop in net exports represents the loss of more than 46,000 U.S. jobs.^[vi] However since the FTA, foreign-made re-exports passing through the United States en route to Korea are up 13 percent on a monthly average basis.^[vii] By counting these foreign goods as U.S. exports, USTR artificially diminishes the dramatic drop in actual U.S. exports to Korea, and errantly claims gains in some sectors.

• Using the USITC data, the 2013 U.S. goods trade balance with NAFTA nations was a deficit of $177 billion. The combined U.S. goods and services deficit with Mexico and Canada rose (in real, inflation-adjusted terms) from $9.7 billion in 1993 to $139.3 billion in 2012 (the year of comparison used by USTR).^[viii] This NAFTA deficit increase of $129.5 billion, or 1,330 percent, represents hundreds of thousands of lost U.S. jobs.^[ix]  But adding re-exports has had an increasingly distortionary effect on the true NAFTA deficit, allowing NAFTA proponents to make the 2013 NAFTA goods deficit of $177 billion look less than half as large. By incorporating re-exports, USTR claims in recent press materials: “U.S. total goods and private services trade balance with Canada countries (sic) shifted from a deficit of $2.9 billion in 1993 to roughly balance in 2012 (surplus of $37 million).” But after removing re-exports and adjusting for inflation, the actual total U.S. goods and services trade deficit with Canada increased from $16.9 billion in 1993 to $49.1 billion in 2012. That’s a deficit increase of $32.2 billion, or 191 percent. Similarly, USTR claims: “U.S. total goods and private services trade balance with Mexico countries shifted from a surplus of $4.6 billion in 1993 to a deficit of $49.4 billion in 2012.” But after removing re-exports and adjusting for inflation, the actual total U.S. goods and services trade deficit with Mexico changed from a $7.2 billion surplus in 1993 to a $90.1 billion deficit in 2012. That’s a $97.3 billion decline in the U.S. goods and services trade balance with Mexico.

We Still Have Big Deficits Without Fossil Fuels (And Corn Doesn’t Explain Korea Export Crash)

Despite USTR’s claim that our NAFTA deficit is all about fuel imports, the share of the U.S. NAFTA goods trade deficit that is comprised of petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas has declined under NAFTA, from 77 percent in 1993 to 53 percent in 2013, as we have faced a surge of imported manufactured and agricultural goods.^[x] Even if one removes all of these “oil” categories from the balance, the remaining 2013 NAFTA goods trade deficit was $82.9 billion. The combined NAFTA goods and services deficit in 2012 minus oil was $38.3 billion. 

Similarly, with respect to the Korea FTA, USTR claims“[O]ur trade balance has been affected by decreases in corn and fossil fuel exports, changes that are due to the U.S. drought in 2012 and change in Korea’s energy mix.”^[xi] But even discounting both corn and fossil fuels, U.S. monthly exports to Korea still fell under the FTA, and the monthly trade deficit with Korea still ballooned.^[xii] USTR claims that corn and fossil fuels explain the entirety of the export downfall largely by using an ill-suited 2011 versus 2013 timeframe that omits 10 months of available data and relies on a less relevant pre-FTA baseline. Usage of this less accurate timeframe produces a greater drop in corn and fossil fuel exports, and a smaller decline in exports of all other goods, than has actually occurred under the FTA when comparing the year immediately preceding the FTA with the full set of available post-FTA data. It is not surprising that the dismal FTA record remains without these products, given that of the 15 U.S. sectors that export the most to Korea, 11 of them have experienced export declines under the FTA.^[xiii] No product-specific anomalies can explain away what has been a broad-based downfall of U.S. exports to Korea since the pact went into effect.

Not Adjusting for Inflation Counts Increased Prices as an Increase in U.S. Exports

USTR also inflates U.S. exports to Korea by failing to adjust for price inflation. For instance, in its recent Korea FTA news release, USTR claims: “In the two years that this landmark agreement has been in effect … exports of U.S. manufactured goods to Korea have increased … Made-in-America manufactured goods still grew their sales in Korea by 3 percent.”^[xiv] Simply adjusting for inflation alone completely erases USTR’s claim of growth in exports of U.S. manufactured goods to Korea under the FTA. That is, even if one includes the distortion of re-exports and uses USTR’s timeframe, U.S. exports to Korea of manufactured goods fell slightly under the FTA after properly accounting for price increases.^[xv] If one removes the re-exports (i.e., uses the official USITC data) and looks at the actual months that the FTA has been in effect, U.S. monthly exports to Korea of manufactured goods have fallen 5 percent on average relative to the year before the deal took effect. The United States has lost an average of more than $150 million each month in manufactured goods exports to Korea under the FTA. Manufacturing sectors that provide critical shares of U.S. exports to Korea, such as machinery and computers/electronics, have experienced steep export declines under the FTA (11 percent and 12 percent respectively). In contrast, of the four critical manufacturing sectors that have seen increases in average monthly exports to Korea under the FTA, none has experienced an increase of greater than 2 percent.^[xvi]

Cherry-Picking Small-Dollar Winning Sectors, Omitting Major Losers to Distract from Net Losses

In its Korea FTA press release, USTR claims: “U.S. exports of a wide range of agricultural products have seen significant gains. … There were also dramatic increases in U.S. exports of key agricultural products that benefit from reduced tariffs under KORUS, including dairy, wine, beer, soybean oil, fruits and nuts, among many others.”^[xvii] But the losses in U.S. meat exports to Korea under the pact alone nearly cancel out the combined export gains for all agricultural sectors that USTR touts as winners (a monthly average loss of $20.1 million in meat exports versus a combined $24.7 million monthly average gain in exports of dairy, wine, beer, soybean oil, fruits and nuts).^[xviii]Average monthly exports of all U.S. agricultural products to Korea have fallen 41 percent under the FTA in comparison to the year before the deal. Ignoring this overall result, USTR singles out fruit as a winning agricultural sector under the FTA. But U.S. monthly average exports to Korea of all fruits have increased by just $312,120 under the FTA. This 1 percent increase could hardly be described as “dramatic.” USTR also highlights wine, but U.S. monthly average exports of wine to Korea have increased by just $370,378 under the FTA.^[xix] The amount of wine sold in an average six minutes in the United States is worth more ($402,415) than the gain in U.S. wine exports to Korea in an average month under the Korea FTA.^[xx]

Such paltry gains pale in comparison to the more than $20 million lost on average under each month of the FTA in U.S. exports to Korea of meat – one of the sectors that the administration promised would be among the biggest beneficiaries of the Korea deal.^[xxi] Compared with the exports that would have been achieved at the pre-FTA average monthly level, U.S. meat producers have lost a combined $442 million in poultry, pork and beef exports to Korea in the first 22 months of the FTA.^[xxii]Since the FTA, U.S. average monthly exports of poultry to Korea have fallen 39 percent below the pre-FTA monthly average. U.S. poultry exports to Korea have been lower than the pre-FTA monthly level in every single month since the FTA’s implementation. U.S. average monthly exports of pork to Korea since the FTA have fallen 34 percent below the pre-FTA monthly average, and U.S. average monthly exports of beef to Korea have fallen 6 percent below the pre-FTA monthly average.^[xxiii]

Omissions and Data Tricks to Hide Massive Auto Sector Deficit Growth Under the Korea FTA

The USTR data on U.S. automotive trade with Korea under the FTA is based on a series of tricks. USTR claims: “Since the Korea agreement went into effect, U.S. exports to Korea are up for our manufactured goods, including autos … overall U.S. passenger vehicle exports to Korea increased 80 percent compared to 2011, and sales of ‘Detroit 3’ vehicles are up 40 percent.”^[xxiv] In fact, exports to Korea of U.S.-produced Fords, Chryslers and General Motors vehicles increased by just 3,400 vehicles from 2011 to 2013.^[xxv]  But given that pre-FTA exports of “Detroit 3” vehicles was also tiny – 8,252 vehicles – USTR can express the small increase of 3,400 cars as a “40 percent” gain. Meanwhile, 125,000 more Korean-produced Hyundais and Kias were imported and sold in the United States in 2013 (after the FTA) than in 2011 (before the FTA), when Hyundai and Kia imports already topped 1.1 million vehicles.^[xxvi]

And USTR’s claim of an “80 percent” rise in passenger vehicle exports, in addition to being inflated by increases in re-exports and prices, omits the export of auto parts, which constitute the majority of the value of U.S. automotive exports to Korea. U.S. average monthly exports of auto parts to Korea have fallen 12 percent under the FTA, offsetting much of the rise in passenger vehicle exports.^[xxvii] After including auto parts, excluding foreign-made re-exports, using the more FTA-relevant timeframe and adjusting for inflation, U.S. average monthly automotive exports to Korea have increased by only 12 percent under the FTA, while average monthly automotive imports from Korea have risen by 19 percent.

The disparity is even starker in dollar terms: While U.S. average monthly automotive exports to Korea under the FTA have been $12 million higher than the pre-FTA monthly average, average monthly automotive imports from Korea have soared by $263 million under the deal. The tiny gains in U.S. exports have been swamped by a surge in auto imports from Korea that the administration promised would not occur because of its additional FTA auto sector measure negotiated in 2011. In January 2014, monthly automotive imports from Korea topped $2 billion for the first time on record. The post-FTA flood of automotive imports has provoked a 19 percent increase in the average monthly U.S. auto trade deficit with Korea.^[xxviii]

Using a Selective Time Frame to Measure the Outcomes of the Korea FTA

Rather than compare the post-Korea-FTA period to the 12 months prior to the FTA’s implementation (i.e., April 2011 through March 2012), USTR uses calendar year 2011 as a baseline. This means that USTR omits data from the three months immediately prior to the FTA’s 2012 implementation (January through March 2012) and replaces it with data from the same three months in 2011. This difference matters, since U.S. exports to Korea in the first three months of 2011 were 9 percent lower than in the first three months of 2012, giving USTR a lower baseline of comparison that makes the downfall in U.S. exports look less severe than if using the three most recent pre-FTA months.^[xxix] In addition, USTR uses only calendar year 2013 to assess the FTA’s record, omitting 10 months of available post-FTA data (April through December 2012 and January 2014). While a comparison between 2011 and 2013 could serve as a second-best approximation in the absence of more precise data, the more FTA-relevant monthly data is readily available.

 

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[i] USITC data can be found at U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb.” Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[ii] Census Bureau data can be found at U.S. Census Bureau, “U.S. International Trade Data,” U.S. Department of Commerce. Available at: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/data/.

[iii] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed February 11, 2014. Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/. The statistic is a comparison of the average annual growth rate of the combined inflation-adjusted exports of all non-FTA partner countries versus that of all FTA partner countries from 2004 through 2013 (adjustments have been made to account for the changes in these two categories as  non-FTA partners have become FTA partners). All data in this memo is inflation-adjusted according to the CPI-U-RS index of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (which provides indices up through 2012) and the online inflation calculator of the U.S. Bureau of Labor of Statistics (which provides an approximate index for 2013). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Consumer Price Index Research Series Using Current Methods (CPI-U-RS),” U.S. Department of Labor, updated March 29, 2013. Available at: http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpiursai1978_2012.pdf.  U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “CPI Inflation Calculator,” U.S. Department of Labor, accessed March 10, 2014. Available at: http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm.

[iv] In this paragraph and throughout, figures concerning average monthly trade levels with Korea compare data from the year before the FTA’s implementation and from the 22 post-implementation months for which data are available. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[v] The projection for export losses under the FTA’s first two years assumes that trends during the FTA’s first 22 months continue for the remaining two months for which data are not yet available. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[vi] Michael Froman, “2014 Trade Policy Agenda and 2013 Annual Report of the President of the United States on the Trade Agreements Program,” Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, March 2014, at 2. Available at: http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2014%20Trade%20Policy%20Agenda%20and%202013%20Annual%20Report.pdf.    

[vii] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[viii] Goods trade data in this bullet point come from U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade Dataweb,” accessed February 20, 2014. Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov. Services trade data in this bullet point come from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, “International Data: Table 12: U.S. International Transactions, by Area,” accessed February 20, 2014. Available at: http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=6&step=1#reqid=6&step=1&isuri=1.

[ix] See Robert Scott, “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA,” Economic Policy Institute, May 3, 2011. Available at: http://www.epi.org/publication/heading_south_u-s-mexico_trade_and_job_displacement_after_nafta1/.

[x] Trade in petroleum, petroleum products and natural gas is defined as NAICS 2111 and 3241 for data since 1997 – when NAICS replaced the SIC classification system – and SIC 131, 291, 295, and 299 for data before 1997.

[xi] Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Shows Strong Results on Second Anniversary,” USTR press release, March 12, 2014. Available at: http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/US-Korea-Free-Trade-Agreement-Shows-Strong-Results-on-Second-Anniversary.

[xii] Corn is defined as NAICS 111150 and fossil fuels are defined as NAICS 211111, 211112, 212112 and 212113. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xiii] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xiv] Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Shows Strong Results on Second Anniversary,” USTR press release, March 12, 2014. Available at: http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/US-Korea-Free-Trade-Agreement-Shows-Strong-Results-on-Second-Anniversary.

[xv] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xvi] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xvii] Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Shows Strong Results on Second Anniversary,” USTR press release, March 12, 2014. Available at: http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/US-Korea-Free-Trade-Agreement-Shows-Strong-Results-on-Second-Anniversary.

[xviii] “Meat” includes beef (defined as SITC 011), pork (defined as SITC 0122, 0161 and 0175) and poultry (defined as SITC 0123 and 0174). Dairy is defined as NAICS 2111511, 311512, 311513, 311514 and 311520. Wine is defined as NAICS 312130. Beer is defined as NAICS 312120. Soybean oil is defined as NAICS 311222 and 311224. Fruits are defined as NAICS 11310, 11320, 111331, 111332, 111333, 111334 and 111339. Nuts are defined as NAICS 111335 and 111992. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 21, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xix] Fruits are defined as NAICS 11310, 11320, 111331, 111332, 111333, 111334 and 111339. Wine is defined as NAICS 312130. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xx] The statistic is based on an estimated $34.6 billion in wine sales in the United States in 2012, adjusted for inflation. The Wine Institute, “2012 California and U.S. Wine Sales,” 2013, accessed March 21, 2014. Available at: https://www.wineinstitute.org/resources/statistics/article697.

[xxi] “Meat” includes beef (defined as SITC 011), pork (defined as SITC 0122, 0161 and 0175) and poultry (defined as SITC 0123 and 0174). Dairy is defined as NAICS 2111511, 311512, 311513, 311514 and 311520. Wine is defined as NAICS 312130. Beer is defined as NAICS 312120. Soybean oil is defined as NAICS 311222 and 311224. Fruits are defined as NAICS 11310, 11320, 111331, 111332, 111333, 111334 and 111339. Nuts are defined as NAICS 111335 and 111992. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 21, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xxii] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xxiii] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xxiv] Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, “U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Shows Strong Results on Second Anniversary,” USTR press release, March 12, 2014. Available at: http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/press-releases/2014/March/US-Korea-Free-Trade-Agreement-Shows-Strong-Results-on-Second-Anniversary.

[xxv] Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association, “New Registration,” 2014, accessed March 10, 2014. Available at: http://www.kaida.co.kr/en/statistics/NewRegistList.do.

[xxvi] Timothy Cain, “Hyundai-Kia Sales Figures,” GoodCarBadCar.net, 2014, accessed March 10, 2014. Available at: http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2012/10/hyundai-kia-group-sales-figures.html.

[xxvii] Passenger vehicles are defined as code 300 and 301 in the one-digit End Use classification system, while auto parts are defined as 302. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xxviii] Total automotive exports and imports are defined as code 3 in the one-digit End Use classification system. U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.

[xxix] U.S. International Trade Commission, “Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb,” accessed March 10, 2014.  Available at: http://dataweb.usitc.gov/.