The new free-trade agreements passed by Congress on Oct. 13 are with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. This supposedly going to generate $13 billion from exports (Yay for money!).
However, as I believe most people have seen the movie "Roger and Me," free trade definitely comes with some losses. So do you think the potential risks worthy these gains? The Democrats seem to think that Congress should not open up the free trade while Republicans are obviously on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Here's an informative, albeit long, video that explains trade quite well, but for specific information on free trade skip to the 5 minute mark. I recommend that you watch the whole thing as it is a fairly extensive topic but the video is easy to understand (also helped by the accents of the narrator and the scholars).
One little tidbit that I found particularly interesting was from Los Angeles Times, that "Though Americans generally indicate they support trade, many blame free-trade agreements for the continued decline of U.S. manufacturing and halting progress on environmental and human rights goals, polls show." I don't know about you, but it seems very American-esque to want all the benefits and none of the side-effects. Sure there will be structural unemployment from outsourcing, but think about all of the positive benefits as well. What do you think? Should we continue with free trade agreements?
2 comments:
I don't know much about free trade, but I recently read an article on the trade agreements in the NY Times. The $13 billion (or $14.4 billion according the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/business/trade-bills-near-final-chapter.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2) really is not that much of our GDP. However, as some of the articles we read in class stated, there is more to success than GDP, and these free trade agreements are a perfect example. Sure, they may drive prices down, and granted they may create structural unemployment, but they are a sign of political achievement and a benefit to the global market. The free trade agreements will open new markets and hopefully create new jobs in the future, so I think we should continue with the agreements!
I also don't know very much about free trade--however, reflecting on past United States' decisions, in some aspects I don't think free-trade agreements would be among our brightest ideas. Despite the potential $13 billion dollar gain, we are seemingly always the green eyed monster in national affairs, and money hungry, not always looking out for lurking variables. However, I also agree with Allison that $13 billion is not much of our GDP. After reading Allison's assertion and you're article, I'm still torn. The downside of free trade and upsides balance each other out in my opinion.
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