Posting about stuff you know little about again, eh? Anything to meet your anti-US agenda.


This is political posturing on the part of the Left.

Tell me, who made this deal? Which Korean administration?

According to you if I post recent news about Korea it is bc of an "anti-american" agenda?

How about telling us what your agenda is, since you are from Canada and yet seem to love the US more than your own country.

This is not about political parties, it's about fairness. And this new Trade deal with Korea/US is unfair to Koreans. If you cared at all about korea, you would realize this.

How is it unfair to Koreans?

The issue at hand is the inclusion of an international arbitration clause. That if a foreign investor feels they have been wronged, they can bring the claim to international arbitration instead of Korean courts. There's been many a time that Koreans have wished they could do the same thing...namely, with China.

This is political posturing by the DP. This is the same group that negotiated this FTA when they were in power. It was their poster boy, Noh, that brought this FTA about, and now they are "against" it because they are out of power.

They are opposing it simply to try to pull in Leftist support prior to next year's election.


As for my supposed love of the US, you're wrong on that count. I disagree with tons that that country does. I just object to the lies I see being spread on this forum. It seems that some anti-us posters are trying to use k-chat as a proxy for their vendettas.

So let me ask you, why are you posting about the Kor/US FTA?

http://cei.org/pdf/6189.pdf

Great post.

The truly ironic thing is that Unions in the US strenuously oppose the Korea-US FTA, with the same arguments advanced by the DP.

http://www.martinezgazette.com/news/story/...trade-agreement

Of course, the OP doesn't oppose free trade at all, indeed, he's outraged the US would even consider enacting new trade barriers with China. He's just against anyone else trading with the US. One standard for China, another standard for all the other ASEAN countries. Little Korea should know better than to conduct an independent foreign or economic policy, really, these countries should defer to China.

However much CCP apologists denounce the Monroe doctrine, it's quite clear that's exactly what they'd like to see in Asia, implemented by China, leaving China a free hand to spread its beneficence in a great co-prosperity sphere.

What's funny is that opposition in both countries think it's their own presidents that are backing down and that their own country is hurting from it, making a lot of people in the two countries become antis of each other.

and guess who controls this "international arbitration"..yep u guessed it: the mighty USA.

why is this turn into china against korea? the OP isn't even chinese he's some Southeast asian muslim guy, I don't car if his mommy is chinese who like to suck muslim c@ck, but chinese is patrilineal so he is not chinese, quit talking about china when the topic is not about china at all!

Got proof?

No, it would be hard to find proof of something that is a lie.

Lies are nothing new to that poster.

The thing is, I can understand people being wary of an FTA. How many years on is NAFTA? And ask a group of americans and Canadians and there's still confusion towards it. These are big deals, and it's hard for us to wrap our minds around all the details.

But what irks me is when things are made up. If you don't like the deal for the parts of it, so be it. If you think it'll directly hurt your life, I get that.

But no need to just make things up.

when the US initiates ANY deal , it doesnt take a rocket scientist to assume they will fashion the deal TO THEIR OWN ADVANTAGE > Koreas advantage.

Arirang Korea FTA Korea-US Issues

FAIR TRADE VS FREE TRADE 101
======================


What's the difference between Free Trade and Fair Trade? Free trade advocates and fair trade advocates have a lot of goals in common. Both seek to help farmers and other producers get access to the global market and to improve wages for producers. Their ideologies, however, differ in some important ways.

Say you’re looking to buy a cup of coffee....



Free trade means that the producer (farmers, small business owners, manufacturers, etc.) who harvested the coffee beans sold them without the interference of the government's tax or monetary gifts - tariffs, subsidies, price controls or pork-barrel politics. Sounds pretty good, right? For some, it is. Free trade proponents believe that leveling the playing field among producers from all nations is the best way of matching global supply to demand while making all people involved more prosperous.

Though by some accounts, free trade leaves producers in developing countries at a disadvantage. In those countries, producers lack social security and other safety nets that would help them hold out on selling their wares during times when prices are low. While producers in more prosperous nations can wait to sell at times like these, their counterparts in developing nations must sell immediately. As a result, they lose a lot of money.

Fair trade means you believe there are some rules in trade that must be placed in order to provide for producers who have disadvantages in a free market. If you buy a fair trade cup of coffee, it means that the farmer who harvested the beans in a developing nation had some help getting his specific product to you. Fair trade aims to help producers in developing countries obtain better trading conditions and gives an extra boost to those producers who promote sustainability (that is, eco-friendly agriculture). Rather than leaving environmental standards and wages up to the market, fair trade actively pushes for higher price for producers as well as social and environmental standards.

Opponents of fair trade say that any solution that favors one group over another harms growth overall. Producers in developed countries, for instance, resent having to compete with what they call cheaper, lower-quality imports. The agreement, they say, is unfair because developing nations often sell more of their product but end up buying less from other countries.



==========================

Here are the basics. Richer, powerful nations are collectively known as the "core," while LDCs (Lesser Developed Countries)
and other very poor countries are known collectively as the "periphery." Dependency theories entertain the idea that periphery states depend for their well-being on the core. The core produces more luxury goods, while the periphery specializes in basic and industrial goods. Although there are many putative mechanisms driving the dependency - some of them highly disputed even among dependency theorists - the general theme is that such a dependent relationship exists, and is ruinous to the LDCs.

F.H. Cardoso and Enzo Faletto published Dependency and Development in 1969, the first academic statement of dependency theory. In it, Cardoso and Faletto argue that "economic development has frequently depended on favorable conditions for exports."
Argentina in 1900 looked economically very similar to the United States of 1900, but Argentina's growth was severely depressed when compared to U.S. economic growth over the twentieth century. Cardoso and Faletto attribute this decline to unfavorable terms of trade relationships for Argentina.

Later versions of the dependency theory hold that governments mismanage money, while private investors regard the Third World as risky investment. So, the Third World finds itself perpetually disadvantaged.

John Gray of the London School of Economics argues in False Dawn: The increased interconnection of economic activity throughout the world accentuates uneven development between different countries. It exaggerates the dependency of ‘peripheral' developing states such as Mexico on investment from economies nearer the ‘centre', such as the United States.
So in this case, Korea would be the peripheral country while the US is the 'centre'.
Though one consequence of a more globalized economy is to overturn or weaken some hierarchical economic relationships between states - between western countries and China, for example - at the same time it strengthens some existing hierarchical relations and creates new ones.

Dependency theory ultimately maintains that the terms of trade between center and periphery nations is unbalanced and therefore unfair.

Fair trade advocates maintain that nations that have limited export opportunities become poorer, and hard-working individuals and their children struggle to meet basic life needs. Fairtrade.org argues that trade introduces an exploitative mechanism which impoverishes those in the Third World: "Particularly in the field of trade, our area of attention, the law of the strongest is frequently the only law. In Asia, Africa and Latin America, both male and female craftsmen and farmers know all about this. If they cannot free themselves from the grasp of the numerous middlemen and buyers, who from their position of power prescribe the lowest prices, they will remain slaves of circumstances their entire lives."

According to the principles of fair trade, the prevailing terms of trade between rich and poor nations are unjust because prevailing market prices for the goods produced in the Third World are too low for the laborers to reap a wage reflecting their dignity.

Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, in Development as Freedom notes another problem of poverty: Many of the same people who have small incomes also have deficiencies in the ability to convert those incomes to useful life pursuits. In other words, there are "unequal advantages in converting incomes into capabilities." Sen continues, "the interpersonal income inequality in the market outcomes may tend to be magnified by this ‘coupling' of low incomes with handicaps in the conversion of incomes to capabilities."

Poorer nations are thereby perpetually punished even further as they are less able to efficiently use the income they accumulate.

Lastly, Id like to point out the most successful, high power countries in the world like Britain and US have risen due to protection of their domestic industries.
There is not a single nation that has risen to prominence by practicing free trade.




America, China and protectionism

Wearing thin

How strong is Barack Obama's belief in free trade?

From the Economist
------------------------------------------------------------


ALTHOUGH Barack Obama alarmed free traders last year with protectionist-sounding pronouncements on the campaign trail, such as one about the need to renegotiate NAFTA, optimists among them dismissed this as mere posturing designed to placate restive trade unions. Yet a decision by the White House to impose punitive tariffs (35% for the first year, falling by five percentage points a year, to 25% in the third year) on Chinese-made pneumatic tyres now raises serious doubts about Mr Obama’s commitment to free trade.

The duties are to be imposed on September 26th under a part of American trade law known as “Section 421”. The American government argues that these tyres are being imported into America from China in “such increased quantities and under such conditions as to cause or threaten to cause market disruption to domestic producers” of competing tyres.

America imported tyres worth $1.3 billion from China between January and the end of July this year. Under the terms of China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, countries have the right to impose tariffs in response to a “surge in imports” from China. But there is always scope for dispute about what constitutes enough of an export surge to justify the use of tariffs, and China has already notified the WTO of its intention to file a case against America. It has also said that it is considering the imposition of retaliatory tariffs on American exports of car parts and chicken meat.



Poultry and tyres sound like small change in the context of the economic relationship between the two big economies. But Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University and a former head of the IMF’s China desk, argues that the American action and Chinese retaliation may presage “more protectionist measures to come from both sides”. He notes that China could retaliate much more broadly than by raising a few tariffs: it could, for example, supplement its implicit export subsidies, including an undervalued exchange rate, with more explicit measures to support its export industries and block imports. This could “easily ratchet up into a broader trade war and inflict economic damage on both countries”.

The decision to use Section 421 is a disturbing one. John Veroneau, a lawyer and a former deputy trade representative, points out that this particular rule “doesn't require any finding of unfair trade practice by China…Chinese tyre exporters were not found to be doing anything wrong or illegal.” This means that it is hard for the administration to pass off the decision as being about tougher enforcement of existing trade agreements, which has been the focus of Ron Kirk, the new American trade representative, since his appointment.

Mr Obama’s decision also marks a clear break with recent American policy. His predecessor, George Bush, had four opportunities to take such a step against China, but in each case chose not to do so. Mr Veroneau, who worked on those cases, argues that “based on their negotiations with the Clinton Administration on Section 421, China expected this tool to be used, if ever, only in the rarest and most exceptional of cases”. So China’s pique is understandable, as are worries that this could lead to a slew of other American industries demanding protection against competition from Chinese imports.

Simon Evenett, a trade economist at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland, argues that Mr Obama’s decision is a clear affirmation of the power of American labour unions in shaping its trade policy. It appears that Mr Obama is desperate to shore-up support from unions and the left of the Democratic Party for health-care reform—his most pressing domestic concern—and is prepared to risk repercussions on trade.

If so, heightened economic tensions between America and China are a heavy price to pay. Mr Prasad says that “an escalating trade war between these two large economies has the potential to disrupt the world trading system”. The China-America spat also comes soon before the leaders of the G20, the group of big rich and emerging economies, meet in Pittsburgh on September 24th. Global co-operation has been crucial amid efforts to encourage economic recovery. It would be a tragedy if it that were derailed by posturing over tyres and chicken.

Let me ask you something - when was the last time you bought coffee in Korea?

And another question - do you consider Korea to be a poor and under-developed country?

When was the last time you actually gave a F about anything other than westernisation of non-western lands?

Also, can you speak Korean yet? Its been what? over ten years?

Another question, do you consider South Korea on equal footing with America? economically, militarily, politically, racially?

I mean racially in the sense that a strong European Union would be supported by the west, but not a strong China.

Haha whenever someone provides a good argument and PROOF against captian corea, his only comeback is "Have you been to Korea?" "Are you even Korean?" even though Captian Corea isn't Korean himself

For all you know that tengrii guy was born in raised in Korea and is Korean by blood. He sounds like it and he is owning you at this debate.

What proof? A copy/paste job from a new poster without any sourcing?




I speak enough to get by. And yes, I consider Korea to be equal on many fronts. Unlike many of the posters here, I actually view Korea as a developed country.

im definitely korean and yes born in korea. i should have posted this here, ill repost to add to the topic

---------

You are visiting a developing country as a policy analyst. It has the highest average tariff rate in the world. Most of the population cannot vote, and vote buying and electoral fraud are widespread.

The country has never recruited a single civil servant through an open process. Its public finances are precarious, with loan defaults that worry investors. It has no competition law, has abolished its shambolic bankruptcy law, and does not acknowledge foreigners' copyrights. In short, it is doing everything against the advice of the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the international investment community.

Sounds like a recipe for development disaster? But no. The country is the US - only that the time is around 1880, when its income level was similar to that of Morocco and Indonesia today. Despite wrong policies and sub-standard institutions, it was then one of the fastest-growing - and rapidly becoming one of the richest - countries in the world.

Especially in relation to trade policy. Many top economists, including Adam Smith, had been telling Americans for over a century that they should not protect their industries - exactly what today's development orthodoxy tells developing countries.

But the Americans knew exactly what the game was. Many knew all too clearly that Britain, which was preaching free trade to their country, became rich on the basis of protectionism and subsidies. Ulysses Grant, the Civil war hero and US president between 1868 and 1876, remarked that "within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade". How prescient - except that his country did rather better than his prediction.

The fact is that rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and institutions they now recommend to developing countries. Virtually all of them used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. In the earlier stages of their development, they did not even have basic institutions such as democracy, a central bank and a professional civil service.

There were exceptions, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, which always maintained free trade. But even these do not conform to today's development orthodoxy. Above all, they did not protect patents and so freely took technologies from abroad.

Once they became rich, these countries started demanding that the poorer countries practise free trade and introduce "advanced" institutions - if necessary through colonialism and unequal treaties. Friedrich List, the leading German economist of the mid-19th century, argued that in this way the more developed countries wanted to "kick away the ladder" with which they climbed to the top and so deny poorer countries the chance to develop.

After the second world war, thanks to post-colonial guilt and cold war politics, developing countries were allowed substantial policy autonomy. For a few decades "ladder-kicking" was at low ebb.

But it has been resumed with renewed vigour in the last two decades, when developed countries have exerted enormous pressures on developing countries to adopt free trade, deregulate their economies, open their capital markets, and adopt "best-practice" institutions such as strong patent laws.

During this period, a marked slowdown has occurred in the growth of the developing countries. The average annual per capita income growth rate in the developing countries has basically been halved, from 3% to 1.5%, between the 1960-80 period and 1980-2000. During the latter period, growth has evaporated in Latin America while the African and most ex-communist economies have been shrinking. Growth has also slowed down in the developed countries but less markedly - from 3.2% to 2.2% - thereby resulting in a growing income gap between the rich and the poor nations.

How do we address this failure? First, the conditions attached to bilateral and multilateral financial assistance to developing countries should be radically changed. It should be accepted that the orthodox recipe is not working, and also that there can be no "best-practice" policies that everyone should use.

Second, the WTO rules should be rewritten so that the developing countries can more actively use tariffs and subsidies for industrial development.

Third, improvements in institutions should be encouraged, but this should not be equated with imposing a fixed set of - in practice, today's, not even yesterday's - Anglo-American institutions on all countries, nor should it be attempted in haste, as institutional development is a lengthy and costly process.

By being allowed to adopt policies and institutions that are more suitable to their conditions, the developing countries will be able to develop faster. This will also benefit the developed countries in the long run, as it will increase their trade and investment opportunities. That the developed countries cannot see this is the tragedy of our time.

· Ha-Joon Chang teaches at the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. This article is based on his book, Kicking Away the Ladder - Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, published by Anthem Press, London

hjc1001@econ.cam.ac.uk

---------------------------------------


South Korea is still not nearly on any equal footing to completely lay everything open and bare to things as dangerous as free trade and market exploitation.

You've already posted that article - no need to spam the forum with it. Also, it's good form that if you're going to take someone's ideas, that you link to e source.


Ok, you're Korean. So let me ask you; what do YOU feel about protectionist policies, and how does that affect YOUR spending habits in Korea?

The professors campus email is written on the bottom. Also, the name of the book he published on the topic?

My concern about the US Korea FTA goes beyond my own personal spending habits.

Its also interesting to note the countries that are currently in a free trade agreement with the US.
Shall we juxtapoz the quote by Ulysses S Grant when observing Britain's strategy in sucking the life blood from others?
"within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade"


Jordan: Jordan – United States Free Trade Agreement (2001)
Australia: Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (2004)
Chile: Chile - United States Free Trade Agreement (2004)
Singapore: Singapore – United States Free Trade Agreement (2004)
Bahrain: Bahrain – United States Free Trade Agreement (2006)
Morocco: Morocco - United States Free Trade Agreement (2006)
Oman: Oman – United States Free Trade Agreement (2006)
Peru: Peru – United States Trade Promotion Agreement (2007)
Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA; incl. Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic; 2005)
Panama: Panama - United States Trade Promotion Agreement (2011)
Colombia: Colombia - United States Trade Promotion Agreement (2011)


Free trade agreements waiting approval
South Korea: Republic of Korea - United States Free Trade Agreement (2011)

some other future free trade deals pushed by the US

Ghana: US-Ghana Free Trade Agreement
Indonesia: US-Indonesia Free Trade Agreement
Kenya: US-Kenya Free Trade Agreement
Kuwait: US-Kuwait Free Trade Agreement (Expert-level trade talks held in February 2006)
Malaysia: US-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement (last meeting was in July 2008]])
Mauritius: US-Mauritius Free Trade Agreement
Mozambique: US-Mozambique Free Trade Agreement


does their pattern look like theyre reaching for fully developed EQUAL economies?

There is ONE potentially EQUAL free trade deal in talks between the US and EU lol...but everyone knows its BS because economic relations are tense and there are frequent trade disputes between the two economies, many of which end up before the World Trade Organization.
See, the big power economies know when youre in a fight/economic competition (which underlies all trade) YOU DONT GIVE UP UR PROTECTIVE STRATEGIES.

two sides of the coine. There is one head that is guiding the two wings of the bird.. But you right, free trade is about making the global aristocracy richer, while making the poor nations unable to develop. That is called warfare