Free trade, Obama style

International trade attorney Scott Lincicome takes a look at the US and Korea free trade agreement. “Overall,” he writes in a message, “it’s good that the FTA is moving again, and Congress appears likely to pass the multi-billion dollar agreement in 2011, but boy is this a smarmy ‘deal’ for the UAW and Ford. And it’s just so typical of this administration and President to take a really good (completed-and-signed in 2007) agreement, sit on it for 2 years, and then re-open it to INCREASE tariffs and other protections just to line the pockets of the White House’s favored industries and unions (at consumers’ expense, natch). Blech.”
Scott’s informed take on the FTA — he cites chapter and verse on why “the whole thing smells pretty bad” — is posted here.