Do trade deals cause social unrest?

S. Korean demonstration in Seoul Feb. 26

It sure looks like the corporate-empowering, job-killing, environment-ruining trade deals we've been treated to ever since Nafta are instigating social unrest and even violence.

We know what's happened in Mexico since Nafta: A drug war that has taken the lives of as many as 100,000 people since 2006. Not to mention slow growth, wage stagnation and continued poverty, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The terrible violence against unionists in Colombia was supposed to end with the Colombian 'free trade' deal. It didn't.

And now, almost two years after the trade deal with South Korea, 40,000 workers staged a one-day general strike on Wednesday, marching through the streets to protest a clampdown on labor groups and the government's attempts to privatize government services.

Just wondering.