[CTC] Congress wants its voice heard as Obama pushes ambitious trade agenda

[Arthur Stamoulis]

http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2013/03/this-months-release-of-government-trade-data-reveals-an-expanding-us-trade-deficit-with-the-world-as-us-exports-dropped-a.html

March 08, 2013

U.S. Trade Deficit with Korea Soars to Highest Point on Record under FTA

The just-released monthly trade data from the U.S. International Trade  
Commission reveals an expanding U.S. trade deficit with the world as  
U.S. exports dropped and imports rose in January, relative to December  
of last year.  But the deficit picture is even starker for U.S. trade  
with Korea under the tenth month of the Korea Free Trade Agreement  
(FTA).  While U.S. goods imports from all countries rose 3% in  
January, U.S. imports from Korea soared 18%.  While U.S. goods exports  
to the world slipped 6%, exports to Korea fell 8%.  And while the U.S.  
trade deficit with the world climbed 21% in January, the deficit with  
Korea jumped 81%.  January's U.S. trade deficit with Korea topped $2.4  
billion -- the largest monthly deficit with Korea on record.  In  
short, another month of trade with Korea under the Korea FTA has  
produced another month of remarkably large job-displacing trade  
imbalances.

The U.S.-Korea trade imbalances of recent months are remarkable not  
just in comparison with most other U.S. trade partners, but in  
comparison to how U.S. trade with Korea looked before the Korea FTA  
took effect in March of last year.  In nine of the ten first months of  
the FTA's implementation, including the most recent month, U.S.  
exports to Korea fell below pre-FTA levels (relative to the same  
months in the prior year), spelling an overall 9% fall in exports  
under the FTA.  In six of those ten months, including the most recent  
month, U.S. imports from Korea exceeded pre-FTA levels, yielding a 2%  
increase in imports under the FTA.  As a result, the U.S. trade  
deficit with Korea under the FTA's first ten months is 30% -- or $4  
billion -- larger than in the same months before the deal took  
effect.  The graph below summarizes this none-too-pretty picture for  
U.S. jobs, depicting the difference between Korea trade levels under  
the FTA (April 2012-January 2013) and those occurring in the same  
months one year earlier, before the FTA took effect.

As Obama administration trade negotiators meet in Singapore this week  
to hash out the details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive  
expansion of the Korea FTA model, they should take a gander at this  
data. If the Obama administration hopes to fulfill its promise of a  
rebirth in U.S. manufacturing, a restoration of middle-class wages,  
and a recovery of decent jobs, it cannot afford to sign another  
sweeping FTA that expands upon the Korea FTA's sorry track record. 
  
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