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?
