I don't expect to see anything positive come out of this agreement either fore the US or Canada. Look at the actual results of the NAFTA and CAFTA agreements to date. Both nations have been put in some bad trade situations. Automobiles is just one commodity. Look at the electronics and clothing sectors too.
What? Are you saying North Koreans can produce higher-quality products more efficiently and so at a better price?
Well then, how about we improve our education system to ensure our workforce has the skills to compete. Protecting our model-T industry is not the way to advance. Free trade helps:
1. clear out our model-T industries so as to allow more space for our new industries to grow.
2. make more obvious any flaws there may be in our economy such as poor labour skills, etc. which might spur governments to increase spending on education.
3. Force our industries to become more efficient.
Free trade is painful because it forces us to do just that. Once the transition is over though, both sides benefit.
I'm not a US citizen, so it's not up to me to decide. But if it were up to me, I'd be all for it.
So far as I can see this will just export even more manufacturing jobs off shore or people here had best be getting accustomed to working for $20/day. If we keep exporting real jobs soon the only rich left in North America will be government workers.
You're way exaggerating. Let's suppose that in fact all jobs moved to South Korea. All of a sudden the US dollar could collapse, the South Korean won would rise, and suddenly South Korean exports wouldn't be so attractive anymore while US exports would be dirt cheap. Also, with the consumer being free to buy the product that best suits him, it forces both Americans and South Koreans to focus on their relative advantages, thus benefiting both countries in the end.
Consider too that this increased efficiency also helps to combat inflation in both countries.
The only losers are those less efficient industries that shouldn't be in the market in the first place.
We must consider too though that for the most part the South Korean economy is a more corporatist than capitalist one, meaning that the government encourages collaboration between labour, management, lenders and other players in the economy, this collaboration ensuring common interest and goals.
Of course different forms of corporatism exist. In South Korea, it's mostly influenced by Confucian teachings about community unity and harmony. This collaborative culture also naturally encourages the government and the private sector to develop a more highly educated workforce to ensure all members of the community can participate in its development.
I can see how free trade between a corporatist economy and one based on a capitalist economy can cause problems. After all, though on the surface they appear the same in that they are both based on a predominantly private sector, the former is based on collaboration between various sectors of the economy (whether between labour and management, different companies, etc. all working together on common goals), whereas ours and the US' are based on compeition, whether between labour and management, different companies, etc.
Needless to say, an economic system that does not waste precious resources on competition but rather on developing efficiency through collaboration is bound to be far more efficient.
The question then is, do we isolate themselves from them, or do we engage them so as to allow it to reveal our relative strengths and weaknesses ans so improve on both sides.
Free trade has impoverished American workers.
And given better deals to American consumers. Are we all all workers and consumers in one way or another?
Yup... just another way to send jobs overseas.
What ever happened to freedom?
This agreement reminds me of NAFTA.
And was it all that bad? The inefficient companies sunk, giving way to the more efficient ones to grow more quickly.
The only real draw back to free trade that I see is that the pressure to make industry more efficient means that for the government to maintain full employment, it must then take much more responsibility to ensure all workers and the unemployed are provided with an opportunity to upgrade their skills to keep up with the faster pace of change that comes with free trade. Think of quality universal compulsory education as the free-trade safety net. As long as that net is in place to retrain those who lose their jobs as a result of free trade, they will go back into the workforce performing more efficiently and thus able to provide quality products at a lower price. Granted free trade does not help much to push salaries up. But we must also look at the bigger picture. It's likely to push costs down faster than protectionism would push salaries up. Looking at it that way, it's still better in terms of how far your salary will take you.
