The US has gone to bat for fair and free trade, to bad they made sure Korea was the one that got the better deal.
The U.S.-Korea FTA fails the most elementary test of any reasonable trade deal: It's not reciprocal.The U.S. currently has a $14 billion trade deficit with South Korea, of which $11.6 billion is accounted for by a deficit in auto trade. Yet, this agreement does nothing to fix this imbalance.
The U.S. has promised to eliminate or phase out tariffs on cars and pick-up trucks -- but Korea won't take meaningful, enforceable action to eliminate the non-tariff trade barriers which have shut U.S. vehicles out of their market for years.
Yep, the US makes sure free trade doesn't hinder incoming product, but
never makes sure the other country follows the rules set.
$11.6 BILLION dollars worth of Auto's come into this country from Korea
but Korea only allows a few thousand American Auto's to come into it's country, not every year. They also make it difficult for Korean's to buy American vehicles, imposing huge taxes on buying them but ostracing them for not buying
Korean vehicles.
The U.S.-Korea FTA will put thousands of good-paying U.S. manufacturing jobs at risk. Just as disturbing, the treaty states that the U.S. will in the future "consider" including goods manufactured in the North Korean industrial zone of Kaesong.This would mean importing goods made by workers who labor as indentured servants for one of the world's most repressive regimes.
The U.S. Korea FTA does not include core labor rights as an enforceable
part of the agreement. Our colleagues in the Korean Metalworkers union
are routinely harassed and jailed, and the U.S. should not grant increased access to our markets to a country that does not respect universally recognized labor rights.
So the US is allowing little better than Korean slaves to make goods, while
being jailed and beat and let them import those goods into the US.