U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Spells Continued Job Loss, Study Predicts

Posted on May 3, 2011

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Computer and electronic manufacturing industries accounted for some 150,000 American jobs displaced as of 2010.

An Economic Policy Institute report released Tuesday confirms that a ballooning U.S.-Mexico trade deficit has cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and predicts more of the same when the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement comes into force. —ARK

Economic Policy Institute:

As of 2010, U.S. trade deficits with Mexico totaling $97.2 billion had displaced 682,900 U.S. jobs. Of those jobs, 116,400 are likely economy-wide job losses because they were displaced between 2007 and 2010, when the U.S. labor market was severely depressed.

Prominent economists and U.S. government officials predicted that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would lead to growing trade surpluses with Mexico and that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be gained (Hufbauer and Schott 1993; President Clinton 1993). The evidence shows that the predicted surpluses in the wake of NAFTA’s enactment in 1994 did not materialize, for reasons outlined in this briefing paper.

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