Here's a round-up of some of the best opinion pieces over the last couple of months about the pending trade deals:

U.S.-Korea trade deal is bad for both countries
By Chun Jung-bae, National Assembly of the Republic of Korea
"There is some rosy fantasy that the pending U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement will create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs in both countries and strengthen and expand the U.S. relationship with Korea. This is a fabrication of multinational corporations that have no allegiance to either country. As a member of the Korean National Assembly, I would like to set the record straight: In reality, the deal is lose-lose."
Read the entire piece here.
Congress should reject proposed trade agreements and insist on better policies
By Lynne Dodson, secretary-treasurer of the Washington State Labor Council, and Kathleen Ridihalgh, senior organizing manager of the Sierra Club in Washington and Oregon.
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. This summer, insanity reigns over proposed U.S. trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. For more than 20 years, "free" trade agreements have systematically undermined the American economy and the middle class. The growing disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" is turning the American dream into a nightmare. It is a direct result of our failed trade policy, and it needs to stop now."
Read the entire piece here.

US-Colombia free trade agreement bad idea for both countries
By John I. Laun and Cecilia Zarate-Laun, Colombia Support Network
"In the coming days, the U.S. Congress will be debating a free trade deal between the United States and Colombia. The agreement, if finalized, will have a negative impact on both countries. It will not lead to job creation in the United States. Instead, it will cost U.S. jobs, as multinationals will relocate to Colombia in order to avoid paying higher wages here. But Colombia will not benefit, either."
Read the entire piece here.

Trading Our Future: Tax Cheating and the Panama Free Trade Agreement
By Dylan Ratigan, host of MSNBC's "The Dylan Ratigan Show"
"If you want to know why politicians are so eager to pass a free trade agreement with Panama this month, type "Panama offshore banks" into Google and look at the paid ads. What you'll see is advertising by law firms and banks that will offer you help to set up a secret corporate structure in Panama immune from taxes."
Read the entire piece here.

Free Trade Pacts Will Cost Tennesseans Jobs
By Robert E. Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute
"Based on past U.S. experience with NAFTA and other trade agreements, I have estimated that the U.S.-Korea and Colombia FTAs will displace 214,000 U.S. jobs. These job losses will fall hardest in industrial states like Tennessee. Workers there would be well-advised to think twice before supporting these job-displacing trade agreements."
Read the entire piece here.
So-called 'free' trade agreements harm American workers
By Steve Kagen, doctor and former member of Congress from Appleton, Wis.
"Professional politicians in Washington and their partners on Wall Street are lining up for another payday - this time by promoting 'free trade' deals with Korea, Panama and Colombia. But if you're not in Washington or on Wall Street, there's a problem. These new deals are just like the old deals. They are job-killers - just like NAFTA and CAFTA before them."
Read the entire piece here.
Say no to new trade deals and start over
Editorial
"If so-called free trade is not done right...the only winners are corporations without borders. The losers are the people who live and work in those developing nations and the American blue-collar workers who see jobs leave the States. ... There is a good reason that both Maine tea party groups and organized labor oppose the South Korea, Panama and Colombia trade agreements. After defeating them, Congress must create a better way to promote global trade."
Read the entire piece here.

Open borders, trade deals are ruinous for America
By James P. Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters
"Three more job-killing trade deals are in the hopper, and you can bet the news media will swallow whole the phony claims made about them by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups. Congress is now considering trade agreements with Colombia, where trade unionists are routinely murdered; Panama, a well-known tax haven; and South Korea, in the biggest trade deal since NAFTA. It seems our trade policy is of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation."
Read the entire piece here.

Trade deals are no deal for US
By Steven J. D'Amico, former Mass. state Representative and member of the American Jobs Alliance
"Even after losing 682,000 jobs to NAFTA since it took effect in 1994, and 2.4 million to China since it joined the World Trade Organization, Washington continues in its blind faith that somehow these trade deals are good for us. This summer Congress is expected to take up three new trade deals - with Korea, Panama, and Colombia. These trade pacts are bad for American workers, bad for our domestic economy, and bad for democracy."
Read the entire piece here.
Free-trade deals would be costly to U.S.
By Tom Burga, president of the Ohio AFL-CIO
"For over a decade, the labor movement and development advocates have called for fair-trade policy that is part of a more coordinated and coherent national economic strategy. Unfortunately, the Korean, Colombian and Panamanian free-trade deals before Congress do not address the fundamental policy failures of the North American Free Trade Agreement and China's inclusion into "favored nation status," which has led to catastrophic job loss in the U.S. and the explosion of our import/export deficit, now reaching $500 billion annually."
Read the entire piece here.
Trade pacts bad for California agriculture
By Curtis W. Ellis, executive director of the American Jobs Alliance, and Joaquin Contente, president of California Farmers Union
"Pending free trade agreements with Korea, Colombia and Panama are bad for California farmers and must be rejected if we are to preserve our way of life. All three trade treaties are based on North American Free Trade Agreement-style policies that have displaced American farmers while sending jobs that support California's rural communities offshore. In fact our leading export is jobs and we reward companies that outsource jobs. Since NAFTA took effect, the United States has lost 300,000 farms and millions of jobs."
Read the entire piece here.
Wisconsin Farmers Union opposes free trade pact with Korea
By Darin Von Rudin, president of Wisconsin Farmers Union
"WFU strongly opposes the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and urges Congress to do the same. We feel our legislative leaders should be protecting and promoting American jobs, family farms and our rural communities through sound economic, environmental and labor policies. We don’t think this trade agreement adequately promotes these values."
Read the entire piece here.
Rep. Schrader is confused on international trade
By Steve Hughes, state director of the Oregon Working Families Party,Ray Kenny, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local, and Frank Rouse, president of the Machinists Union Local 1005
"Congressman Kurt Schrader seems to be confused. On the one hand, he says he opposes trade deals that extend greater rights to foreign investors than exist for Oregonians doing business in our state. On the other hand, he is supporting a massive new free trade agreement with South Korea that does just that."
Read the entire piece here.
Free trade agreements jolt the economy, but not in a good way
By Jessica Lettween, director of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition
"It's easy to understand why multinationals adore the Korea agreement. But with around 7 percent unemployment in Minnesota, a budget crisis, and an electorate that is strongly opposed to more NAFTA-style trade agreements, it is baffling why any member of Congress would endorse a deal that will cost us so much."
Read the entire piece here.

Choose voters over donors on free trade
By Gordon Lafer, professor at the University of Oregon, former senior adviser to the U.S. House’s Labor Committee
"Like Republicans, the White House is eager to get these treaties done quickly, so that voters will have forgotten by the fall of 2012. To see the Obama administration and Republican leadership quietly collaborating to seal this deal in knowing violation of the voters’ will is among the most telling signs of corporate power in Washington, and among the most depressing stories in these tough times."
Read the entire piece here.

Obama's trade policy clearly shortsighted
By Karen Hansen-Kuhn, international program director for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
"More than two years into the Obama administration, we're still waiting for a 21st-century trade policy."
Read the entire piece here.
(Disclosure: Public Citizen has no preference among the candidates for public office.)