Citing the U.S. example, citizens’ watchdog warns against free trade with Korea

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is leading a trade delegation in South Korea this week.

Perhaps as early as Tuesday, he is expected to announce the inking of a free trade deal with Korea — a deal that has been in the works for almost a decade.

The prime minister is touting the imminent deal as an "important step forward." Reports suggest that it could significantly boost Canadian exports to the Asia Pacific especially with regard to our agriculture sector.

Stuart Trew of the Council of Canadians, however, isn't buying the Harper hype.

In a statement posted on the citizens' watchdog's website, Trew says that he expects that the deal will only widen Canada's trade deficit with Korea.

"If things go the same way as they did for the U.S. in the U.S.-Korea FTA, Canada can expect zero export growth and an increased trade deficit," Trew is quoted as saying.

"Considering how similar U.S. and Canadian exports are, I think it's the most likely situation."

Trew is likely alluding to a 2013 report by another left-leaning think tank — the U.S. based Economic Policy Institute.

"When the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement was completed in 2010, President Obama said that it would increase U.S. goods exports by “$10 billion to $11 billion,” supporting “70,000 American jobs from increased goods exports alone”," economist Robert E. Scott wrote for EPI.

"Things are not turning out the way the president predicted. KORUS took effect March 15, 2012. In the year after the agreement took effect (April 2012 to March 2013), U.S. domestic exports to South Korea (of goods made in the United States) fell $3.5 billion, compared with the same period in the previous year, a decline of 8.3 percent.

"In the same 12-month period, imports from South Korea (which the administration consistently declines to discuss) increased $2.3 billion, an increase of 4.0 percent, and the bilateral U.S. trade deficit with South Korea increased $5.8 billion, a whopping 39.8 percent. Estimates for 2013 suggest no reversal in these trends."

And, in terms of jobs, Scott suggests that America's growing trade deficit with Korea resulted in the "elimination of 40,000 U.S. jobs."

[ Related: Canada's prime minister in South Korea for expected trade deal ]

Anti-free trade think-tanks aren't the only ones concerned.

Unifor, Canada's union for autoworkers, is concerned that axing a 6.1 per cent import tariff on automobiles, will allow Korean car companies to flood the Canadian marketplace at the expense of North American manufacturers and Canadian jobs.

"That 6.1 per cent tariff replacement is going to cost Ontarians and Canadians about 33,000 jobs," Dino Chiodo, a spokesperson of Unifor, told CBC News.

"We're talking about billions in giveaways with regards to auto and maybe millions in the other segments."

To date, Canada's opposition parties are withholding judgment.

"In trade deals, it's details that matter," NDP trade critic Don Davies told the Canadian Press.

"The Conservatives have the least transparent trade policy probably in the developed world. They are closed, they are secretive and they don't involve a lot of stakeholders; they don't involve the opposition."

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