Obama scores win with S. Korea, Colombia, Panama deals President Obama scored a victory with the passage of a trio of free-trade pacts yesterday, marking America's biggest trade expansion in nearly 20 years. The House and Senate both approved the pacts with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. While the Latin American pacts may have little impact, the South Korean deal could create as many 280,000 American jobs and boost exports by $12 billion, the Washington Post reports.
Farm exports are expected to get a major boost from the South Korean deal, but labor groups opposed to the pact warned that the deal could wipe out American jobs in the textile, manufacturing, and electronics industries. Obama is expected to unveil further East Asian trade deals this fall, although the pacts have been scaled back considerably. "Right from the start Obama has been very reluctant to do any trade liberalization at all. However, he realized that if he did not engage with Asia on trade and economics he was leaving the field to China," the director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics tells the Wall Street Journal.
The House voted to pass the Colombia measure, the most controversial of the three deals because of concerns about the treatment of unions in that country, 262 to 167; the Panama measure passed 300 to 129, and the agreement concerning South Korea passed 278 to 151. The votes reflected a clear partisan divide, with many Democrats voting against the president. In the Senate, the Colombia measure passed 66 to 33, the Panama bill succeeded 77 to 22 and the South Korea measure passed 83 to 15. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, voted against all three measures.
The House also passed a measure to expand a benefits program for workers who lose jobs to foreign competition by a vote of 307 to 122. The benefits program, a must-have for labor unions, passed with strong Democratic support. The Senate previously approved the measure.
Proponents of the trade deals, including Mr. Obama, Republican leaders and centrist Democrats, predict that they will reduce prices for American consumers and increase foreign sales of American goods and services, providing a much-needed jolt to the sluggish economy.
“At long last, we are going to do something important for the country on a bipartisan basis,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader.
