[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Simon_R', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t benefits the rich and hurts the poor

[ralfy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kylon', 'T')here is no arguement that Free Trade increases wealth overall. The problem is that it takes wealth away from workers/middle class, while enriching financiers and industrialist.

It allows the corporations and the political and economic elite to have a weapon which they can threaten the American worker.

That's why it's hated.

It allows a big corporation to say to American workers "Either you reduce the wages you demand, or we will ship all your jobs overseas". Thus American workers hate it. They see no benefit from it whatsoever, and rightfully so. What good is increased wealth in the system, if you don't get any of it?

Furthermore, the greater the wealth inequality the less relative political power the American worker has. Thus it's not just a matter of survival in the economic sense, in the long run, globalization gives corporations the power to completely undermine democracy.

So the American worker is rational in his hatred of free trade, it is in no way beneficial to him. It benefits the rich and hurts the poor.

[Shaved Monkey]

Australia has recently signed a FTA with China,Korea and Japan
Free trade is great for the middle man and crap for the poor.
Chinese are willing to pay $11 a litre for Australian milk we currently pay $1 a litre.
As if they will keep selling it to us for $1 for too much longer.
Australian grass fed beef is hitting record highs as Chinese buyers want more meat.
Fresh Australian seafood is exported for maximum profit while we get to import cheap SEAsian farmed seafood frozen for domestic consumption.
We export fresh cherries to the US in your winter and import US cherries in our winter.
The US cherries are old and crap and expensive when they get here as I imagine the Australian ones are too.
You used to be able to go to the markets and pick up cherries dirt cheap as they have a limited shelf life now there arent any excess cherries.

FTAs are crap

[SeaGypsy]

Australian farmers deserve a much better deal than they have been getting from the big supermarket controlled set up. $1-2 a liter for milk is a joke considering what goes into producing it. If the Chinese want to pay $8-12 for it & the duoploly of Coles & Woolworths is broken, this is very good for Aussie dairy producers & the regions they farm. Personally I haven't been into dairy since I was a child, which seems pretty natural to me, unlike adults consuming food designed for infants of another species. The worst affected are those in general manufacturing, which is already in deep doggy do anyhow.

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')ustralian farmers deserve a much better deal than they have been getting from the big supermarket controlled set up. $1-2 a liter for milk is a joke considering what goes into producing it. If the Chinese want to pay $8-12 for it & the duoploly of Coles & Woolworths is broken, this is very good for Aussie dairy producers & the regions they farm. Personally I haven't been into dairy since I was a child, which seems pretty natural to me, unlike adults consuming food designed for infants of another species. The worst affected are those in general manufacturing, which is already in deep doggy do anyhow.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Kylon', 'T')here is no arguement that Free Trade increases wealth overall. The problem is that it takes wealth away from workers/middle class, while enriching financiers and industrialist.

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')ustralian farmers deserve a much better deal than they have been getting from the big supermarket controlled set up. $1-2 a liter for milk is a joke considering what goes into producing it. If the Chinese want to pay $8-12 for it & the duoploly of Coles & Woolworths is broken, this is very good for Aussie dairy producers & the regions they farm. Personally I haven't been into dairy since I was a child, which seems pretty natural to me, unlike adults consuming food designed for infants of another species. The worst affected are those in general manufacturing, which is already in deep doggy do anyhow.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')ustralian farmers deserve a much better deal than they have been getting from the big supermarket controlled set up. $1-2 a liter for milk is a joke considering what goes into producing it. If the Chinese want to pay $8-12 for it & the duoploly of Coles & Woolworths is broken, this is very good for Aussie dairy producers & the regions they farm. Personally I haven't been into dairy since I was a child, which seems pretty natural to me, unlike adults consuming food designed for infants of another species. The worst affected are those in general manufacturing, which is already in deep doggy do anyhow.

[Shaved Monkey]

Chinese are buying up the dairy industry in Australia and NZ to supply their demand and cut out the middle man.
So much land with enough rain fall or irrigation to support green grass that traditionally fed only 20 or 30 million now has a market of potentially a billion.
The dairy producer will be happy when he sells the farm and doesnt have to get up at 4 in the morning.
Poor consumers is going to have to get used to drinking black coffee/tea or take out a mortgage for a carton of milk.
Most will get turned into baby formula.
Theres already rationing for baby formula at supermarkets as Chinese students and Chinese locals buy up stock and ship it back to China.
Shops have been set up that ship baby formula to china in suburbs with high Chinese concentrations.
................................
When the floods hit in Qld a few years back and there was no milk in the supermarkets I remember old age pensioners taking baby formula to put in their tea,their white tea was more important than a hungry baby.
...........................
At least the FTA will drive Australian women back to breast feeding.

I drink black tea

[SeaGypsy]

Firstly they are already paying 8-10 times Aussie prices. There are rackets all over the place buying up retail baby food & sending it to China, double to triple price after freight. Secondly, Chinese firms have to pay award wages for the workers on farms they are buying, many of whom will be ex farm owners making far less than minimum wage before the buyout. Take out the freight cost to China, middleman & retail markup, $4 a liter is not going to bankrupt anyone in Australia, that suggestion is absurd.

[Timo]

Sea Gypsy, i'm not doubting or questioning you one bit, but you are educating me about the economic realities on the other side of the world. Most of what you're saying is news to me. All that means, i guess, is that our knowledge of news is limited to the news outlets we're exposed to. In that sense, the fact that the Chinese are buying up dairy farms in Aussie and NZ isn't news at all, in the American sense of what is and isn't news. I'm not defending that at all. In fact, i'm condemning that fact. Economics on the western side of the Pacific is simply something that us Yanks don't find that interesting. At least, that's what our sources of news lead us to believe.

Thanks for shining some light on situations we (Yanks) should be concerned about.

[SeaGypsy]

My 'expert' tag here is for Oceania & SE Asia geopolitics & economics, there are a few of us antipodeans on here though & we don't always see things the same way. My reading of the current round of trade negotiations is that they are mostly positive for Australia. They aren't going to wreck any industries which weren't already being wrecked but they will boost trade & commodity market access. There are aspects I strongly disagree with, such as the right of overseas corporations to sue onshore governments for implementing laws which interfere with their profits. A big shake up of tax is underway here also to try to make these people pay a fair share, so the situation is very much in flux.

[Timo]

In that case, since we're on opposite sides of the Big Water, and also exposed to very different economic realities, i could easily expect that we view the TPP very differently, as well. It's all a matter of perspective. I don't doubt that the TPP would be helpful to Asian nations, but from my perspective as a Yank, it sucks. It sucks in the short term, anyway. That said, i'm also not an "expert" on much of anything, and that fact is especially scary because i was an economic advisor to our Governor and State Legislature back in the 90s. Thankfully, we had sane elected officials back then (except for the fact that they hired me!), and also thankfully, nothing i said ever turned out to be wrong. Several people didn't like me much, but that's because i was right, and advised our legislature against pursuing other people's programs, which had proven to be failures. Ce la vie, eh? (That's French Canadian.)

And for whatever it's worth, i won't claim to be right about much of anything here at PO, except for when i obviously am.

[SeaGypsy]

Our 25 million vs your 12 or so times that does make for a very different set of fiscal equations. Our trade balance is largely held up by commodities, while the US is still a major manufacturer. We supply the raw products to China to compete with America, who print money to compete with China, else wages in the US would have to fall by a huge margin. It's all very complicated!

[Timo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '.')....... wages in the US would have to fall by a huge margin. It's all very complicated!

[Tanada]

Bump

[Subjectivist]

If the President is serious about scrapping all multi nation trade agreements and replacing them with strictly bilateral agreements it will change everything. With these over arching agreements you have to get broad support to fix differences between anyone else and yourself. With all bilateral agreements that stops being an issue.

[Cog]

The USMCA agreement is making the stock market soar. Nafta is dead and We are fortunate it is.

[yellowcanoe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cog', 'T')he USMCA agreement is making the stock market soar. Nafta is dead and We are fortunate it is.

[rockdoc123]

Not sure why anyone would make a lot of noise about this agreement as if it is a major win for anybody. It doesn't appear to be.

From what I can see the US gets 3% more access to Dairy, but they were never shipping their maximum allowed into Canada under the former agreement so this seems like a non-event. My understanding is the US was exporting $500 MM in dairy products into Canada under NAFTA anyways. The supply management thing that Trump made so much noise about (and pretty much nobody in Canada outside of Quebec wants) has changed a bit with the US now being able to increase exports of eggs and poultry into Canada but again one wonders how impactful this will be. Most Canadians will buy fresh eggs, dairy and poultry meaning from local producers rather than that which is shipped in some distance. Probably more impact to the Provinces that border on US farm country.
The term on protection for drugs went up 2 years not the 4 years the US wanted. This will cost Canadians a bit more as there was a steep discount with generic drugs
Copyright terms in Canada now match those in the US and Europe (70 years after death of inventor) but from a tax income standpoint it is a wash given those estates holding copyrights will make more money, offset by those who have to license those rights. This simply brings Canada up to the levels elsewhere.
The cultural provisions in NAFTA which the Canadian government wanted to maintain in order to protect Canadian digital content remain. I think most Canadians would have been happy to see that disappear given most think the CBC sucks and are tired of yet another version of Anne of Green Gables making it onto the television screen. I suppose there are a few good shows on CBC but they are overwhelmed by complete dreck IMO.
There is no change to TN trade visas (for professionals wanting to work across borders).
There is no change to the Buy American rules that existed under NAFTA which applied to cross-border procurement.
Chapter 19 rules on trade disputes remain in place which should keep the US from dumping dairy products
There is a side letter that protects Canda and Mexico from any auto tarrifs in that it sets a maximum limit that is far above current Canadian exports of autos or parts into the US,

All in all I think this is a non-event. I'm sure it won't keep Trump from beating his chest and claiming victory though!

I saw a funny comment....when you say USMCA with a sing song voice it sounds almost like YMCA. Maybe Trump will make his staff dress up like the village people now.