Elites Push TPP; Jobs Lost, Steel Industry Threatened By Last Trade Deal

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/56273/elites-push-tpp-jobs-lost-steel-industry-threatened-by-last-trade-deal

Elites Push TPP; Jobs Lost, Steel Industry Threatened By Last Trade Deal
by Dave Johnson | June 7, 2014 - 8:31am

Wednesday’s trade balance report showed that just two years after signing a “free trade” agreement with South Korea we have reached a record monthly trade deficit of $2.3 billion with that country, up from $1.3 billion the month before. Now South Korea is attacking the U.S. steel industry. Meanwhile U.S. elites are pushing “fast track” and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) so we can get us even more of that.

What They Promised Then

When the trade deal with South Korea passed in 2011 we were promised 280,000 jobs and a “jump-start” to the “flagging economy without additional government spending.”

~snip~

What We Got

The U.S.-South Korea trade agreement went into effect in March 2012. Instead of creating jobs, the deal has cost jobs and increased our trade deficit with South Korea. Last month we hit a record trade deficit with South Korea of $2.3 billion. As of July, 2013 the deal had already cost 40,000 U.S. jobs, “mostly in manufacturing.” In other words, good-paying jobs. As of March, 201,4 that job-loss number had reached 60,000, again mostly in manufacturing.

But there are signs that job loss could get much, much worse. South Korea is now going directly after the U.S. steel industry. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) report from May, titled “Surging Steel Imports Put Up To Half a Million U.S. Jobs at Risk,” finds that half a million jobs are at risk because Korea is “dumping” — selling below cost — steel goods onto the U.S. market, particularly “tubular goods” used in oil exploration and production.