Thanks for starting this discussion. For more background on free trade agreements, please visit export.gov for details on these pending agreements: Panama Korea Columbia

That we need Free Trade Agreements with the developing countries is, I think, not the actual question. The fact that we need to reach other countries outside the U.S. are without a doubt, a must and a necessity. We are only 333 million people, and with the increased competition, and the proliferation of web-based suppliers, our internal markets are ever diminishing. So we must REACH outside the US, so that we can push our products and services to a broader, and a larger buyer-population. It will, however, increase competition for US manufacturers and producers of consumer, and industrial products, and hight-tech products. But the very high tech and sophisticated research centered sectors, will be largely unaffected. To safeguard against this, though it is impossible to eliminate it, we will have to concentrate on strategic negotiations, such as the imposition of stepped up emissions and environmental standards to manufactures that we allow into our country, and even measures such as increased tariffs on imports, thereby giving our local manufacturing companies an edge. Another concern would be exploitation of labor, and other human and natural resources. Disallowing the import of products and services which can clearly be identified as an outcome of such inhumane and anti-environmental processes, would both decrease the inflow of such items into the country, and increase the general cost of imports into the country. George Cogency.us cogency-bizconsult.blogspot.com