March, 15 2017, 06:00pm EDT
On Unhappy Fifth Anniversary of U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, Deficit With Korea Has Doubled as U.S. Exports Fell, Imports Soared
President Trump Appoints a Leading Promoter of Korea Pact as White House Special Assistant for Trade and Goes Silent on Deal After Decrying ‘Job-Killing Trade Deal With South Korea’ on Stump
WASHINGTON
President Donald Trump has been conspicuously silent about the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) since taking office, so whether the administration comments on the pact's March 15 fifth anniversary is being closely watched. Trump spotlighted the "job-killing trade deal with South Korea" in his nomination acceptance speech and on the stump, where he also often noted "this deal doubled our trade deficit with South Korea and destroyed nearly 100,000 American jobs."
Trump's approach to the pact was called into question when he appointed one of the Korea FTA's most persistent promoters, Andrew Quinn, to be special assistant to the president for international trade, investment and development. When the deal was initially completed in 2007, Quinn, who played a role in FTA negotiations as counselor for economic affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, declared: "It's a great agreement" that "demonstrated the effectiveness of the model, i.e., a comprehensive high-standard agreement." When Quinn later served in the Obama White House National Security Council as director for Asian economic affairs from September 2010 to August 2012, he worked on the ratification of the Korea FTA. He most recently served in the Obama administration as the deputy lead negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
"Our trade deficit with Korea doubled under this deal, so it's not surprising Trump spotlighted it as a job-killer during his campaign. But voters who supported him because they thought he'd do something to reverse the damage of this and other deals will be furious if he fails to act, and more so when they learn that the very 'insiders' he criticized on the stump are calling the shots," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.
The agreement, sold by the Obama administration with a "more export, more jobs" slogan, had already resulted in the doubling of the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea by its fourth year, as U.S. exports declined 10 percent ($4.5 billion) and imports from Korea increased 18 percent ($10.8 billion), resulting in a trade deficit of $31.6 billion relative to one of $15.9 billion in the 12 months before the pact went into effect on March 15, 2012. That deficit increase with Korea came in the context of the overall U.S. trade deficit with the world decreasing by 2 percent. Meanwhile, the U.S. service sector trade surplus with Korea has increased by only $2 billion from 2011 to 2015, a growth rate of 29 percent that is notably 64 percent slower than our services surplus growth over the four years before the FTA went into effect. In the 10 months of available trade data since the FTAs full fourth year, the goods deficit with Korea has totaled $25.5 billion compared with $25.3 billion in the comparable period a year ago. Goods trade data for the full fifth year of the deal will be released May 4 and service sector data in October.
The division among Trump staff over trade policy was on display in the only Trump administration comment on the Korea FTA, which came in the March 1 President's Trade Agenda report that reflects the views of Trump's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer: "Further, the largest trade deal implemented during the Obama Administration - our free trade agreement with South Korea - has coincided with a dramatic increase in our trade deficit with that country. From 2011 (the last full year before the U.S.-Korea FTA went into effect) to 2016, the total value of U.S. goods exported to South Korea fell by $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, U.S. imports of goods from South Korea grew by more than $13 billion. As a result, our trade deficit in goods with South Korea more than doubled. Needless to say, this is not the outcome the American people expected from that agreement. Plainly, the time has come for a major review of how we approach trade agreements. For decades now, the United States has signed one major trade deal after another - and, as shown above, the results have often not lived up to expectations."
Despite the Korea FTA including more than 10,000 tariff cuts, 80 percent of which began on Day One:
* The U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea increased 99 percent, or $15.4 billion, in the first four years of the Korea FTA (comparing the year before it took effect to the fourth year data) and in the 10 months of its fifth year is on track to beat the fourth year deficit. Nearly 80 percent of the deficit is in the automotive sector. Record-breaking U.S. trade deficits with Korea have become the new normal under the FTA - in 47 of the 48 months since the Korea FTA took effect, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has exceeded the average monthly trade deficit in the four years before the deal.
* Since the FTA took effect, U.S. average monthly exports to Korea have fallen in 10 of the 15 U.S. sectors that export the most to Korea, relative to the year before the FTA. Exports of machinery and computer/electronic products, collectively comprising 27.8 percent of U.S. exports to Korea, have fallen 21.6 and 8.2 percent respectively under the FTA.
* U.S. exports to Korea of agricultural goods have fallen 19 percent, or $1.4 billion, in the first four years of the Korea FTA despite the administration's oft-touted point that almost two-thirds of U.S. agricultural exports by value would obtain immediate duty-free entry to Korea under the pact. U.S. agricultural imports from Korea, meanwhile, have grown 34 percent, or $123 million, under the FTA. As a result, the U.S. agricultural trade balance with Korea has declined 22 percent, or $1.5 billion, since the FTA's implementation. The Obama administration promised that U.S. exports of meat would rise particularly swiftly, thanks to the deal's tariff reductions on beef, pork and poultry. However, U.S. exports to Korea in each of the three meat sectors have fallen below the long-term growth trend since the Korea FTA took effect. Compared with the exports that would have been achieved at the pre-FTA average monthly level, U.S. meat producers have lost a combined $62.5 million in poultry, pork and beef exports to Korea in the first four years of the Korea deal - a loss of more than $5 million in meat exports every month.
* Despite the promises made by U.S. officials that the pact would enhance cooperation between the U.S. and Korean governments to resolve food safety and animal health issues that affect trade, South Korean banned nearly all imports of American poultry at the beginning of 2015 due to several bird flu outbreaks in Minnesota and Iowa. Comparing the FTA's fourth year to the year before it went into effect, U.S. poultry producers have faced a 93 percent collapse of exports to Korea - a loss of nearly 100,000 metric tons of poultry exports to Korea. U.S. beef exports are finally nearing pre-FTA levels after declining an average of 11 percent during the first three years of the agreement. U.S. pork exports have also nearly recovered to pre-FTA levels after falling by an average of 16 percent in the first three years of the agreement.
* U.S. goods exports to Korea dropped 10 percent, or $4.5 billion, under the Korea FTA's first four years. In the 10 months of data since then, U.S. goods exports to Korea decreased by 1.4 percent or $483 million, relative to the same 10-month period in the previous year.
* While U.S. goods imports from the world decreased by 6 percent, U.S. goods imports from Korea increased by 18 percent, or $10.8 billion, during the FTA's first four years. In the 10 months of data since then, U.S. goods imports from the world decreased by 2 percent, while U.S. goods imports from Korea remained at the high levels of the period in the previous year.
Pre-FTA | 4th Year | #s | % | |
Exports | 14,284 | 50,864 | 36,580 | 256% |
Imports | 862,789 | 1,460,396 | 597,607 | 69% |
Deficit | -848,505 | -1,409,532 | -561,027 | 66% |
* The auto sector was among the hardest hit: The U.S. trade deficit with Korea in passenger vehicles grew 66 percent in the pact's first four years. In the 10 months since then, the U.S. trade deficit in vehicles has increased an additional 2 percent, relative to the same 10-month period in the previous year. U.S. imports of passenger vehicles from Korea has increased by 69 percent, or by an additional 597,607 vehicles by the fourth year of the Korea FTA in addition to the 862,789 vehicles sold to the United States by Korea before the FTA. This import flood dwarfed the 36,580 increase in U.S. passenger vehicles that the United States exported to Korea by the fourth year of the pact. Even so, expect defenders of the agreement to say U.S. auto exports have grown faster than Korean auto exports or that U.S. auto exports to Korea have tripled - without mentioning that this figure just represents the addition of the 36,580 vehicles from the low pre-FTA sales number of 14,284 U.S. vehicles sold in Korea without mentioning that on balance the United States has suffered a 66 percent expansion of our auto trade deficit with Korea.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
'Racist POS' Mike Collins Cheers Video of Ole Miss Mob Attack on Black Student
"This is not about Israel, Palestine, or Gaza. This is old-fashioned American racism and misogyny," said one observer. "These are the types of young white men who will grow up to be Republican governors, senators, and members of Congress."
May 03, 2024
Republican Georgia Congressman Mike Collins came under fire Friday over a social media post applauding video of white University of Mississippi students racially abusing a Black woman participating in a campus protest for Palestine.
Collins posted the video—in which numerous people can be heard grunting like apes and one young man is seen jumping up and down like a monkey in front of the Black woman—with the caption, "Ole Miss taking care of business."
Collins—or whoever's in charge of his social media accounts—sparred with Black leaders who called out his racism. When former Democratic Ohio state senator Nina Turner said the video showed "anti-Blackness," the congressman shot back, "*Anti-terroristness."
When Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) accused Collins of "fueling white supremacy," the Republican retorted, "Don't take down any more signs at our workplace, please" along with a photo of the Democrat triggering a fire alarm in a House of Representatives office building last year.
Around 30 protesters were rallying in support of Palestine in the Ole Miss Quad when counter-protesters gathered near the demonstrators. Some booed and chanted, "We want Trump!" Others singled out the Black woman—who NBC Newssaid is a graduate student at the school—chanting "Lizzo, Lizzo, Lizzo," "take a shower," "your nose is huge," "fuck you, fat bitch," and "lock her up!"
The counter-protesters also sang the "Star-Spangled Banner." Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves shared a separate video of the singing students on social media, captioning his post, "Warms my heart" and "I love Mississippi."
No racist language can be heard in the video shared by Reeves.
The Daily Mississippianreports the demonstrators were escorted off the Quad after counter-protesters threw water bottles at them.
Collins is no stranger to accusations of racism. Earlier this year, he suggested murdering migrants by throwing them from helicopters into the sea, in the manner of U.S.-backed South American dictators in the 1970s.
He also
introduced the Restricting Administration Zealots from Obliging Raiders (RAZOR) Act, which would ban the federal government from removing or altering "any state-constructed barriers installed to mitigate illegal immigration," such as the razor buoys installed in the Rio Grande by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Collins was also
accused of antisemitism after he amplified an anti-semitic social media post by an avowed neo-Nazi targeting a Washington Post reporter for being Jewish.
Ole Miss said Friday that "statements were made at the demonstration on our campus Thursday that were offensive and inappropriate."
"We cannot comment specifically about that video, but the university is looking into reports about specific actions," the school added. "Any actions that violate university policy will be met with appropriate action."
The Ole Miss incident comes amid rapidly spreading campus protests across the U.S. and around the world in response to Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which has killed, maimed, or left missing around 5% of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people, most of them civilians, while forcibly displacing nearly 9 in 10 people and driving hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.
While numerous Ole Miss students said they did not understand what the pro-Palestine protesters hoped to accomplish, others voiced support for the demonstrators—and for Palestine.
"As we've seen throughout history, time and time again, the student movement is never wrong. Time and time again, anytime there's a student protest, and you're against it, you're on the wrong side of history," Xavier Black, a junior majoring in international studies, told
The Daily Mississippian. "So I would like to be on the right side."
One Palestinian American Ole Miss student was teary-eyed as she thanked the protesters.
"Hey guys, I know that what just happened was really intimidating, and it was a little scary, but I just want to say I'm so proud of you guys," the student—who gave only her first name, Jana—said,
according toMississippi Today. "This wasn't going to happen... without all of you guys. Palestine was being heard. And I just want to thank you guys so much."
"I know that was such a big risk, but this is the most that people have ever thought for us, so don't give up," she added. "I know that was really hard, but we need to keep fighting. This was just the start of it, okay?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
UK Voters Send 'Shout' for Change to Tories as Labour Sweeps in Local Elections
"We are probably looking at certainly one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years," said one analyst.
May 03, 2024
Nearly two weeks after the British Conservative Party pushed through a proposal to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda in what one lawyer called "performative cruelty" in the name of winning the general election expected later this year, the local election results announced throughout the day Friday made increasingly clear the ploy hadn't worked.
Elections expert John Curtice projected the Tories could ultimately lose up to 500 local council seats as vote counting continues into the weekend, following elections in which voters cast ballots for 2,661 seats.
The Conservatives have lost around half of the seats they are defending Curtice told BBC Radio.
"We are probably looking at certainly one of the worst, if not the worst, Conservative performances in local government elections for the last 40 years," the polling expert said.
Curtice added that if the results were replicated in a general election, Labour would likely win 34% of the vote, with the Tories winning 25%—five years after the right-wing party won in a landslide in the last nationwide contest.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the results represented a decisive call for "change" from British voters, particularly applauding the results of a special election in Blackpool South, where Labour candidate Chris Webb won nearly 11,000 votes while Conservative David Jones came in a distant second with just over 3,200.
Webb's victory represented a 26% swing in favor of Labour.
"That's the fifth swing of over 20% to the Labour party in by elections in recent months and years. It is a fantastic result, a really first class result," Starmer said. "And here in Blackpool, a message has been sent directly to the prime minister, because this was a parliamentary vote, to say we're fed up with your decline, your chaos... your division and we want change. We want to go forward with Labour."
"That wasn't just a little message," he added. "That wasn't just a murmur. That was a shout from Blackpool. We want to change. And Blackpool speaks for the whole country in saying we've had enough now, after 14 years of failure, 14 years of decline."
The Conservatives also lost ground in the northern town of Hartlepool, where they lost six council seats. The region swung toward the Tories after the party led the push for Brexit, the U.K.'s exit from the European Union.
A similar result was recorded in York and North Yorkshire, which includes the area Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak represented as a member of Parliament.
"Yorkshire voted for Brexit in 2016," wrote William Booth, London bureau chief for The Washington Post. "But long gone are the days when many Conservatives want to stand before the voters and extol the advantages of leaving the European Union, which has been, in most sectors, a flop."
Sunak, added Booth, is "betting that immigration is still an issue with resonance and has promised to 'stop the boats,' the daily spectacle of desperate migrants risking their lives on rubber rafts trying to cross the English Channel. Sunak's government plans to fly asylum seekers arriving by boat to Rwanda. No flights have taken off yet. But the Home Office last week began a self-proclaimed 'large scale' operation to detain asylum seekers destined for removal."
The Labour Party has called Sunak's Rwanda plan a "gimmick" and said it would reverse a Tory policy blocking refugees from applying for asylum.
Average wages in the U.K. last year were "back at the level during the 2008 financial crisis, after taking account of inflation," according toThe Guardian.
"This 15 years of lost wage growth is estimated by the Resolution Foundation thinktank to have cost the average work £10,700 ($13,426) a year," reported the newspaper in March. "The performance has been ranked as the worst period for pay growth since the Napoleonic wars ended in 1815."
Analysts noted one setback for Labour in Oldham, where the party lost some seats in areas with large numbers of Muslim voters to independent candidates, costing it overall control of the council.
Arooj Shah, the Labour leader of the Oldham Council, told the BBC that the party's support for Israel in its bombardment of Gaza was behind its losses.
"Gaza is clearly an issue for anyone with an ounce of humanity in them, but we've asked for an immediate cease-fire right from the start," said Shah. "We have a rise of independents because people think mainstream parties aren't the answer."
The losses "should be a wake-up call for the Starmer leadership: Every vote must be earned," said the socialist and anti-racist group Momentum. "That means calling for an immediate arms ban to Israel, calling out Israeli war crimes, and delivering real leadership on climate."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israel Briefs US on Plan for 'Ethnic Cleansing' of Rafah
"A military invasion in Rafah would be CATASTROPHIC... There can be no more 'evacuations.' There is no safe place to go," said Oxfam, calling for an immediate cease-fire.
May 03, 2024
Israeli officials have told the Biden administration and humanitarian organizations how they plan to start forcibly expelling Gazans from Rafah ahead of a likely ground invasion—a move critics have likened to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arabs during the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
Politicoreported Friday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials informed the U.S. government and aid agencies that a plan is in place to remove Palestinians from Rafah, where approximately 1.2 million refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza are precariously sheltering alongside around 280,000 local residents in the embattled strip's southernmost city.
According to an unnamed U.S. official and two other people familiar with the plan, Israel would "move people out of Rafah, the main humanitarian hub in the enclave, to al-Mawasi, a small strip of land on the southern Gaza coast." Politico also obtained a copy of a map containing some details of the plan.
The Wall Street Journalreported Friday that Israel has given Hamas until next week to submit to a cease-fire proposal or face an invasion of Rafah.
"Such an invasion could lead to horrific massacres and raise scenarios of a second Nakba," the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said recently. "After 200 days of horrific genocidal acts in Gaza, the real objectives of the attack are the continuation of the 76-year-long ongoing Nakba and the erasure and genocidal destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israel is laying the groundwork to fulfill its settler-colonial plan of colonizing Gaza."
Human rights defenders have warned that Israel may ultimately seek to ethnically cleanse as many Palestinians as possible from Gaza.
The situation in Rafah is already dire. Water and other necessities are in desperately short supply. According to James Elder, the global spokesperson for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), there is approximately one toilet for every 850 people in Rafah and one shower for every 3,500 people.
On Friday, Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters in Geneva that an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah would put hundreds of thousands of Palestinians "at imminent risk of death."
"Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death," Laerke said, warning of not only "a slaughter of civilians, but also at the same time an incredible blow to the humanitarian operation in the entire strip, because it is run primarily out of Rafah."
Around 5% of Gazans have been killed, maimed, or left missing by Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, according to a report published Wednesday by the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Economic Commission for Western Asia. That's more than 120,000 people, the vast majority of whom are innocent civilians, according to Palestinian officials and international human rights groups.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular