Trade Action - or Inaction: The Cost for American Workers and Companies
Summary
In recent months, the United States has taken a number of trade actions - and refused to take others - that have a negative impact on U.S. companies, their workers, and the economy. We examine three of these - the failure to implement the U.S.-Colombia and the U.S.-Korea free trade agreements, "Buy American" provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ("Recovery Act"), and the failure to implement the trucking provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement and Mexico's resulting retaliation against U.S. exports. We estimate these three trade actions/inactions would have a negative effect on U.S. companies and their workers, and that employment losses could total as much as 585,800 jobs.