Congress approved free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia Wednesday, the first new trade partnerships formed by the United States in four years.
The agreements will lower, or even eliminate, tariffs that face U.S. exporters in the three countries. According to the administration, the new agreements could boost exports by $13 billion and add tens of thousands of jobs.
“Free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama may create or support more than the 70,000 jobs estimated by economists because service industries will add workers,” U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in an article on Businessweek.com.
The agreements gave Congress the opportunity to show their ability to work together in order to help inject life into the U.S economy and add extra jobs for Americans.
“We don’t do much around here that’s bipartisan these days,” said Sen. Rob Portman in an article in The Washington Post. Portman was a U.S. Trade Representative during the George W. Bush administration. “This is an example of where we can come together as Republicans and Democrats realizing that with 14 million Americans out of work, we need to do things to move our economy forward.”
According to The Washington Post, the votes were 278-151 for South Korea, 300-129 for Panama and 262-167 for Colombia. The Senate votes were 83-15 for Korea, 77-22 for Panama and 66-33 for Colombia.
In an article in The New York Times, the United States International Trade Commission predicted that American farmers would see the most benefits because of increased demand for dairy products and beef, pork and poultry. The commission also predicted that the agreements would eliminate some manufacturing jobs in the U.S., particularly in the textile industry.
University of Maryland students feel that the newly approved agreements should help out a struggling U.S. economy and job market.
“This should help to lower our trade deficit and unemployment rate,” said junior finance major Jeff Wright.
“Well, I read that it could create about 70,000 jobs, which should make a dent in the very high unemployment rate right now,” said junior journalism major Chris Leyden.
The last free trade agreement approved by Congress was in 2007 with Peru.