Leftovers can often be a gamble. It's even worse if they’ve been sitting out for three years, after being left behind by the last landlord.
President Bush and the Republic of Korea signed the KORUS Free Trade Agreement on June 30 2007. Because of concerns about an unlevel playing field on cars and catfish – on refrigerators and rice – on TV sets and shrimp, and a host of other issues, this FTA remains unresolved.
In fact, since Bush first pushed it, not one U.S. labor union, faith group, family farm organization or pro-environmental entity has yet to endorse or support the Korea FTA, or advocate for its passage.
Put simply, these old leftovers are not healthy.
The Korea FTA is an ending point for the previous administration, not a starting point for the new one.
Some of the problematic leftovers from NAFTA include . . .
Foreign Investor Rights. The investment chapter still affords foreign investors greater rights than those enjoyed by U.S. investors. Not one word was changed in the Korea FTAs’ foreign investor chapters that promote off-shoring, and subject our domestic environmental, zoning, health and other public interest policies to challenge by foreign investors in foreign tribunals. The Korea FTA also allows challenges by foreign investors in foreign tribunals of timber, mining, construction and other concession contracts with the U.S. federal government.
Food Safety Provisions. The amended text does not address limits on imported food safety and inspection. These FTAs still contain language requiring the United States to accept imported food that does not meet our safety standards.
Procurement Provisions. The Korea FTA procurement rules subject many common federal and state procurement policies to challenge in trade tribunals and directly forbid other common procurement policies. These procurement rules continue the NAFTA/CAFTA ban on anti-off-shoring and Buy America policies and expose U.S. renewable energy, recycled content and other environmental safety requirements to challenge.
Agriculture Provisions. The text does not address the problems in the NAFTA-style agriculture trade rules that have simultaneously undermined U.S. producers’ ability to earn a fair price for their crops at home and in the global market place. Multinational grain trading and food processing companies have made enormous profits while farmers on both ends have been hurt. Continuing this model is projected to increase hunger; illicit drug cultivation; undocumented migration; and continue the race to the bottom for commodity prices, pitting farmer against farmer and country against country to see who can produce food the cheapest, regardless of standards on labor, the environment or food safety.
Access to Medicines. While the amended text of these FTAs removes the most egregious, CAFTA-based, provisions limiting the access to affordable medicines, the text still includes NAFTA provisions that undermine the right to affordable medicines for poorer countries contained in the WTO’s Doha Declaration.
We are all eager to support trade agreements that benefit a majority of U.S. workers, farmers, small businesses and consumers. We all want to pass future trade agreements that work to achieve the larger societal goals of economic justice, poverty alleviation, healthy communities, pollution reduction, human rights and a sound environment.
The Korea FTA does not meet these goals.
To see what a good trade agreement might look like, we encourage you to read the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act put forward last session by Sen. Sherrod Brown, Rep. Mike Michaud and over eighty of their Congressional and Senate colleagues.
The TRADE Act marks out policy space for a more balanced way to expand trade. It maps out a fair path forward, explaining what we are all for in a good agreement. It sets out the basic terms of what must and must not be included in future trade agreements.
