<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125);" class=""><a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/press-release-korea-third-year-data.pdf" style="color: purple;" class="">http://www.citizen.org/documents/press-release-korea-third-year-data.pdf</a><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><u class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></u></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><u class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">For Immediate Release</span></u><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">: <u class="">Contact</u>: Alisa Simmons (202) 454-5111 <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">May 5, 2015 Lori Wallach (202) 454-5107, </span><a href="mailto:lwallach@citizen.org" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">lwallach@citizen.org</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></i></b><o:p class=""></o:p></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Third Year of Korea FTA Data Released, Show Failure of Obama’s Last ‘More Exports, More Jobs’ Trade Pact Promises, Further Burdening Fast Track Prospects<o:p class=""></o:p></span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><i class=""><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Trade Deficit With Korea Balloons 104 Percent as Exports Fall and Imports Surge Under Korea Pact Used as TPP Template<o:p class=""></o:p></span></i></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today’s release of </span><a href="http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/data/index.html" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. government trade data</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> covering the full first three years of the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement (FTA) reveals that the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has more than doubled. In addition, today’s U.S. Census Bureau data show Korea FTA outcomes that are the opposite of the Obama administration’s “</span><a href="https://ustr.gov/uskoreaFTA" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">more exports, more jobs</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">” promise for that pact, which it is now repeating with respect to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as it tries to persuade Congress to delegate Fast Track authority for the TPP</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. goods exports to Korea have dropped 6 percent, or $2.7 billion, under the Korea FTA’s first three years, while goods imports from Korea have surged 19 percent, or $11.3 billion (comparing the deal’s third year to the year before implementation). As a result, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has swelled 104 percent, or more than $14 billion. The trade deficit increase equates to the loss of more than 93,000 American jobs in the first three years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs </span><a href="http://trade.gov/publications/pdfs/exports-support-american-jobs.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">ratio</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> that the Obama administration used to project <i class="">gains</i> from the deal.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">“As if the odds for Fast Track were not already long enough, with most House Democrats and many GOP members stating opposition, today’s unveiling of a job-killing trade deficit surge under the Korea FTA puts a few more nails in Fast Track’s coffin,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Who’s going to buy the argument about Fast Track and the TPP creating ‘more exports and more jobs’ when Obama’s only major trade deal, used as the TPP template, was sold under that very slogan and yet has done the opposite?”<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">In contrast to the decline in U.S. goods exports to Korea in the FTA’s first three years, U.S. goods exports to the world have risen 2 percent during that time, despite the strengthening value of the dollar. And the 104 percent surge in the U.S.-Korea goods trade deficit under the FTA starkly contrasts with the 5 percent <i class="">decrease</i> in the global U.S. goods trade deficit during the same period. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Record-breaking U.S. trade deficits with Korea have become the new normal under the FTA – in </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">35 of the 36 months since the Korea FTA took effect, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has exceeded the average monthly trade deficit seen in the three years before the deal. In January 2015, the monthly U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea topped $3 billion – the highest level on record.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">The administration has tried to deflect attention from the failure of its Korea FTA by claiming that its poor performance has been caused by economic stagnation in Korea. However, Korea’s economy </span><a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">has grown</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> during each year of the Korea FTA, while U.S. exports to Korea have not. <o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. exports to Korea are actually even lower than today’s numbers indicate and the U.S.-Korea trade deficit is even higher, when properly counting only made-in-America exports. The exports data in today’s U.S. Census Bureau release include “foreign exports” – goods made abroad, imported into the United States and then re-exported </span><a href="http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/reference/definitions/#F" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">without undergoing any alteration in the United States</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">. Foreign exports support zero U.S. production jobs, and their inclusion artificially inflates U.S. export figures and deflates U.S. trade deficits with FTA partners.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">Each month, the </span><a href="http://dataweb.usitc.gov/" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">U.S. International Trade Commission</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> (USITC) reports the official U.S. government trade data with foreign exports removed, typically within two days after the U.S. Census Bureau releases the raw data. USITC likely will release the Korea trade data without the distortion of foreign exports by Thursday, May 7, at which point the more accurate – and even more negative – record of the Korea FTA will be made available at </span><a href="http://www.citizen.org/documents/Korea-FTA-3-years.pdf" style="color: purple;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">http://www.citizen.org/documents/Korea-FTA-3-years.pdf</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center; background-color: white;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class="">###</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;" class=""><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></body></html>