The Time for Action on the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement is Now

We urge President Obama to work with Congress and the business community to create U.S. jobs and put us on the path to double our exports by passing the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement.

Learn more:

•  U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Coalition
• Report: Failure to Implement the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement: The Cost for American Workers and Companies
• Faces of Trade: Small Business Success Stories with Korea

The State of World Trade

The United States is missing out on opportunities to boost trade and jobs: To create the 20 million jobs we'll need by 2020, we must leverage the opportunities presented by trade. This is why the Chamber applauded when President Barack Obama called for a national goal to double U.S. exports within five years.

The opportunities we see abroad are vast: Outside our borders are markets that represent 73% of the world's purchasing power, 87% of its economic growth, and 95% of its consumers. Trade is recovering in the wake of the financial crisis, and the WTO reports a feared epidemic of protectionism did not materialize.

» Read the summary and download the report
» Read Tom Donohue's speech delivered at the National Press Club

Falling Behind: By the Numbers

• U.S. exporters face higher tariffs abroad than nearly all our trade competitors. The United States received a rank of 114 among 121 economies in terms of “tariffs faced” by its exports, according to the World Economic Forum.
• U.S. exporters face higher tariffs abroad than nearly all our trade competitors. The United States received a rank of 114 among 121 economies in terms of tariffs faced by its exports, according to the World Economic Forum.
• There are 262 free trade agreements in force around the globe today, but the United States has FTAs with just 17 countries.
• More than 100 market-opening trade agreements are under negotiation worldwide. The United States is at the table in just one of these.
• Germany, China, and Britain have each ratified bilateral investment treaties with 100 or more nations, while the United States has done so with just 40 countries.
• The United States stands to lose more than 380,000 jobs if it fails to implement its pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea while the European Union and Canada move ahead with their own agreements with the those countries, according to a study by the U.S. Chamber.
• Congress has granted 12 presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt the authority to negotiate market-opening trade agreements in consultation with legislators. President Obama is the first not to have this authority.

Opening Markets, Creating Jobs: Estimated U.S. Employment Effects of Trade with FTA Partners

To show the benefits of America's trade agreements for U.S. workers, the U.S. Chamber commissioned a study entitled Opening Markets, Creating Jobs: Estimated U.S. Employment Effects of Trade with FTA Partners. It found nearly 18 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with America's free trade agreement (FTA) partners -- 5.4 million of which were created by the increase in trade unleashed by the agreements.

The study examined U.S. FTAs in effect in 2008 with a total of 14 countries. It excluded three other countries where FTAs have only recently been implemented. The study employs a widely used general equilibrium economic model which is also used by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the WTO, and the World Bank.

» Read the summary and download the study

Trade Action - or Inaction: The Cost for American Workers and Companies

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.