Some good news for U.S. workers. Obama's negotiations with South Korea for yet another NAFTA styled trade agreement failed. There will be no new trade agreement. This one was a battle of the businesses, the labor arbitrage loving statistical spin machine U.S. Chamber of Commerce against U.S. auto makers Ford and Chrysler.
President Barack Obama won’t be returning from his Asia trip with a renegotiated free trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea. Concerns over barriers to American automakers selling more vehicles in that country remain a point of contention.
The Obama administration had hoped to reach a deal on the free trade agreement first settled in 2007. That deal was never formally approved by either nation, and congressional Democrats – particularly those in the House – had balked because of concerns that U.S. automakers still couldn’t compete on equal footing in South Korea.
This week, Chrysler Group LLC joined Ford in opposing the deal as written. Last week, Ford took out a full-page ad claiming that for every 52 Korean cars sold in the U.S. only one American car is sold in South Korea.
Of course the Obama administration is pledging to keep at it, but the House, including the new Republicans might have some different ideas.
In a joint statement, current House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin, a Royal Oak Democrat, and his presumptive replacement, Republican Dave Camp of Midland, said “Further negotiations will succeed only if South Korea adopts concrete steps to open its market to U.S. exports” including autos.
The Detroit Free Press is reporting on the closed Chrysler dealership details and it appears these dealerships are stuck with the existing inventory and all of the parts on hand. Talk about guaranteeing these dealerships go down in flames, this has to be it:
Now that it has notified 789 dealerships they would be terminated, Chrysler must sell the 44,000 vehicles sitting on their lots in the next few weeks without driving prices to fire-sale levels for remaining dealers.
"It's going to be a challenge even with the factories closed to redistribute that number of vehicles and sell them in a short period of time," said Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, the nation's largest auto retailer. Even a giant like AutoNation will lose seven Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge dealerships that employ 400 people.
Despite that, Jackson called the closings painful, but necessary.
Uh huh. Anyone know of an orderly bankruptcy that didn't cause thousands of job losses? The automobile manufacturing supply chain is heavily OEMed. This means an entire chain of businesses, suppliers are involved in making cars and trucks.
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