Lucas,
As if more American job loss and a larger trade deficit weren't bad enough outcomes of the Korea trade deal heading to Congress... it would increase sweatshop abuses and undermine U.S. national security.
We found a serious loophole buried in the pact's text. It would allow North Korea's notorious dictatorship to obtain new flows of funding from North Korean sweatshop exports. That funding could be used to maintain the stranglehold over the North Korean people and build up nuclear weapons programs aimed, at, um, us.
Congress should support manufacturing in the U.S., not in North Korean sweatshops!
Tell your representative to vote "No" on the Korea trade deal.
Unthinkably, President Obama has adopted the NAFTA-style Korea trade deal negotiated by former President Bush. Even though it would allow special new access here for goods containing a majority of inputs and parts manufactured in North Korean sweatshops, Obama is pushing to pass the NAFTA-style deal early this spring.
Current U.S. law strictly limits imports from North Korea. But the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) would provide a way around the sanctions - with new tariff-free access for goods with up to 65% North Korean value in parts and inputs as long as final assembly is in South Korea!
Tell Congress to oppose sweatshop abuses and nukes by voting down the Korea trade deal.
The most notorious North Korean sweatshop is called the Kaesong Industrial Complex. It was developed by large South Korean corporations to take advantage of rock-bottom 25-cent-an-hour wages in North Korea. There are 44,000 North Korean workers shipped in daily to work for 120 South Korean firms. Under the FTA, U.S. and South Korean workers will be placed in direct competition with North Korean counterparts that aren't protected by even the most basic labor rights.
But the outrage doesn't end there. The North Korean dictatorship collects $3 million to 4 million a month from Kaesong, according to U.S. government reports. This includes the 45% that the regime skims off of the sweatshop workers wages. This hard currency income helps the Kim Jong Il regime's development of nuclear weapons, which the Pentagon estimates would be capable of hitting the U.S. West Coast within five years.
Tell Congress to vote "No" on the Korea trade deal.
Despite the dire national security implications, the Bush and Obama administrations refused to even demand that goods containing North Korean content be labeled as such - much less that such goods be denied new special access under the trade pact. U.S. and South Korean workers may lose their livelihoods under this NAFTA-style pact. They shouldn't also be forced to unknowingly finance a regime that wants to take their lives as well!
Members of Congress and the public demanded that the Obama administration change these harmful sweatshop-promoting provisions, but our calls were ignored. Now, we must demand that Congress reject this backdoor attack on our national security and basic labor rights.
Stop the Korea trade deal. Tell your representative to vote "No."
Learn more about the Kaesong sweatshop threat to national security (PDF).
Thanks for all you do!
Todd Tucker
Research Director, Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch