By Keith Laing, The Hill
The Obama administration should not give Mexican trucks full access to U.S. highways under NAFTA, a liberal Democrat said Friday.
In a letter to the agency administering a program that would allow Mexican trucks into the U.S., Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the administration was pushing the “full liberalization of cross-border trucking” with its proposed pilot program under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Updates
04/18/11
Kristen Ridley, Change.org
Despite its relative absence in the media, the U.S.'s pending free trade agreements (FTAs) with Columbia and South Korea have been getting a lot of attention in Washington. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been heavily urging Obama to submit the deal for approval as soon as possible. Unfortunately, like NAFTA before it, the Korea FTA is a terrible deal for family farmers.
04/14/11
A panel of industrial and defense experts warned today that the steep decline in America’s manufacturing base has dire consequences for the nation’s ability to provide good jobs and defend itself. Noting that because the defense industry and the manufacturing sector are tied together, whole civilian industries are linked with defense manufacturing, said Dr. Joel Yudken, author of Manufacturing Insecurity: America’s Manufacturing Crisis and the Erosion of the U.S. Defense Industrial Base.
04/13/11
Free Trade Agreement unlikely to increase sales of U.S. cars in South Korea
By Truman Lewis, ConsumerAffairs.com
A newly released study by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) warns that the already hard-hit U.S. auto industry is in for more pain if a new trade agreement is approved by Congress.
04/12/11
The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call recently reported that the government of South Korea is paying Washington-based lobbying and public relations firms to push Congress to pass the pending Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA).
04/11/11
Ian Fletcher, San Francisco Chronicle
One thing is for certain already: global trade as we know it will not be here in 10 years. It may even be gone in five. The unsustainable U.S. trade deficit alone assures this.
04/11/11
Michael Whitney, Firedog Lake
SEIU came out against the Colombia “free trade” agreement today, slamming the deal as a product negotiated by George W. Bush with an “action plan” that does nothing to actually reduce the number of assassinations of union members in the country.
04/11/11
The Columbus Dispatch
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a longtime critic of trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, last week assailed the new agreement between the Obama administration and Colombia, charging that "it merely represents another example of Washington being out-of-touch with concerns and values of most Americans."
04/10/11
Roy Takumi, Honolulu Star Adviser
The pending U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement is not a good deal for Hawaii or the United States. As state legislatures across the country struggle to rebuild our economies after the global financial crisis, and balance state budgets, we urgently need forward-thinking policies that will create American jobs.
04/08/11
By Jim Goodman, Common Dreams
While the Boston Globe indicated NAFTA was bad for U.S. jobs and the environment, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that under NAFTA multinational corporations had been able to cut labor costs and increase their profits. KORUS will be no different: bad for workers, good for corporate profits. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that under KORUS, the U.S. trade deficit would, again, increase and U.S. jobs would, again, be lost.
