President Obama's free trade agreement with Columbia will hurt the US.

Thank you for accepting, Con. I guess this debate will be fair, as I am also relatively new to this site. Let me lay out some definitions before I start. Free Trade Agreement: A contract by which two or more nations are allowed tariff free imports and exports. President Obama’s free trade agreement with Colombia: The agreement between the US and Colombia that will remove a duties and tariffs on imports and exports by 2022. Intro 1992 was perhaps one of the most pivotal elections in United States history. It was a time of new technology, expansion, and greed in America, but a time where greed WAS good. That election, unlike almost any other in the history of the country, was a three-man race - between GOP incumbent George Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton, and Independent Ross Perot [1]. Mr. Perot was different from other politicians of the time in that he wasn't afraid to speak the truth, even if it cost him votes. Perot, unlike his two challengers, was opposed to NAFTA, a major free trade agreement that was about to be signed between the US, Canada, and Mexico [1]. Perot warned of the dangers of enacting free trade agreements so rashly with so little regulations. At the time, he was regarded as crazy for his unpopular beliefs about the agreement. "What could possibly be wrong with increasing our exports?" most people thought. Now, in 2012, we look back upon NAFTA, Bill Clinton having won the election and having signed the agreement. Frankly, NAFTA was one of the most miserable failures in United States history. Not only were over 800,000 US jobs lost, but also hundreds of thousands of other US jobs saw gigantic wage deductions [2]. Through this debate, I will explain to you why these things happened - and why the United States made the same mistake twice in signing the agreement with Colombia (hereon referred to as TPA). Arguments Contention 1 - The TPA will negatively affect jobs in the US. Sub Contention A - That Giant Sucking Sound... In 1992, Ross Perot warned of "The Giant Sucking Sound" of good American jobs being lost to Mexico if NAFTA was signed [1]. Unfortunately, his warnings proved to be true, and history shows that job outsourcing ALWAYS occurs when free trade agreements are signed with countries that have lower minimum wages, no unions, and other low work standards. Colombia is a prime example of this type of country. First of all, Colombia has an incredibly low minimum wage, of 515,000 Colombian pesos a month (the equivalent of about $292 a month) [3]. What manufacturing company wouldn't want to outsource their workers into a place with wages that low? Also, Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world for workers' unions [4]. The targeting of unionists by paramilitaries has led to thousands of deaths, and currently less than 6% of Colombian workers are unionized because of this. As former paramilitary Carlos Castaño said, "We kill trade unionists because they interfere with people working." EPI has estimated that the proposed U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement will result in the loss or displacement of 55,000 U.S. jobs [5]. Sub Contention B - Wages in the US will drop as a result of the TPA. Besides the jobs lost as a result of the TPA, many jobs will be worsened and their wages dropped. Under NAFTA, companies were able to threaten their workers by demanding that they either disband their unions, or lose their jobs to Mexican workers, who are able to work for less money. Why wouldn't this happen under the TPA, as well? Workers will be left with no choice but to disband their unions, thus resulting in no collective bargaining and therefore much lower wages. So despite what President Obama says, this agreement will only make life harder for middle class Americans. Contention 2 - The TPA will increase the US trade deficit. For those of you who don’t know, a trade defiect is when a nation's imports exceed its exports. The US has a gigantic trade deficit, and that is one of the main contributing factors to our bogged down GDP. Obviously, the goal of the TPA is to increase exports, therefore decreasing our trade deficit. But what really happens under free trade agreemetns with countries like Colombia, that have lower product prices? We begin to import more, as well! And usually, the new import figures are even higher than the new export figures, only resulting in a trade deficit rise. For example, in 1990, before NAFTA, our trade defit with Mexico was about 1.4 billion [6]. Then several years later in 2000, after NAFTA had been signed, our trade deficit had risen to over 24 billion. Ladies and gentlemen, these are not at all good numbers. And Mexico's work and product standards are very similar to that of Colombia, so I don't see why our trade deficit won't grow under the TPA as well! Contention 3 - The TPA will increase the US federal budget deficit. This contention is a common sense observation, but very serious nonetheless. In 2011 the US budget deficit was about $1.56 trillion [7]. This is, by anyone's standards, way too much money. There are two ways to stop this deficit - cut spending, or raise taxes. But until one of those things is done, which will likely not occur until the CBO approves a new annual budget, the deficit will remain. Therefore, eliminating tariffs on imports (which will happen under the TPA) will decrease revenue, as the government is no longer collecting money from everything brought in from Colombia. This decrease in revenue means a LARGER DEFICIT, which is something we cannot afford right now. Contention 4 - The TPA will negatively impact the environment. Up until recently, the environmental impact of free trade agreements has been disregarded in their contracts. An example of this was NAFTA. Although there was a section for environmental regulations in the text of NAFTA, it is common knowledge that these regulations have been severely inadequate and unsuccessful, and the effects of air and water pollution since then have been ignored [8]. Under the TPA, it seems we have made the same mistake. Almost NO new regulations have been demanded of Colombia under this agreement, and the manufacturing companies there are still able to pollute freely, when we could have used this agreement to INCREASE their regulations. Conclusion Under the TPA, we have made the same mistake that we made almost 20 years ago - allowing free trade that will ultimately cause us to lose jobs, decrease wages, increase the trade deficit, decrease federal revenue, and hurt the world environment. Sources [1] http://www.youtube.com... [2] http://useconomy.about.com... [3] http://colombiareports.com... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://www.epi.org... [6] http://www.census.gov... [7] http://en.wikipedia.org... [8] http://library.thinkquest.org...