In today's rapidly globalizing world, the topic of free trade has emerged as one of the most controversial issues up for debate. While economic theory predicts that freer trade will inevitably make everyone in society better off, trends in recent decades have shown that the removal of trade barriers not only creates big winners, but also makes many people across the world worse off. In the United States, the struggle between the winners and losers in the globalization game has most recently manifested itself in the debate over the South Korea-US Free 메이저놀이터 Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). While it was concluded on April 1, 2007, recent administrations have not submitted the KORUS FTA for congressional review. We will now explore the KORUS FTA and its supposed impact on American exports in order to explain this administrational refusal to submit the agreement to Congress.

The KORUS FTA is the most economically significant bilateral free trade agreement that the United States has concluded since signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The KORUS FTA will open South Korea - a country that represents America's seventh-largest trading partner, $82 billion in bilateral trade in 2007, and a growing market of 49 million consumers - to the majority of American goods and services. According to the strictures of the KORUS FTA, Korea and the US will be permitted three years to eliminate tariffs on over 90% of bilateral trade in consumer and industrial products and almost 2/3 of American agricultural exports to Korea will become duty-free immediately. Furthermore, the agreement will address a multitude of non-tariff barriers and increase transparency in the South Korean regulatory process. According to an estimate by the US International Trade Commission, opening the Korean goods market alone will add $10-12 billion to annual US GDP and will lead to an increase in better-paying jobs for American workers (export.com).