Yonhap News, Korea
Congressional aide says Korea FTA 'not going anywhere'
2 April 2008
WASHINGTON, April 2 (Yonhap) -- A U.S. congressional aide expressed distrust of the pending free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, claiming Wednesday it does not eliminate trade barriers, especially on beef and autos.
Jason Kearns, trade counselor to the House Committee on Ways and Means, compared the trading history with the Asian nation to "whack a mole."
One barrier is put in place, the U.S. negotiates to eliminate it, "only to find another one is put in place instead," he said at a forum at the Heritage Foundation. The history has been "long and not particularly pretty," he said.
The South Korea FTA "is not going anywhere" in the Congress at this point, he said.
South Korea and the U.S. signed the FTA in June last year and hope to obtain legislative ratification this year. The administrations in both countries have hailed it as a commercially important deal with a significant geopolitical impact between allies of more than 50 years. For the U.S., it is the first FTA with an Asian country and a means to keep engaged in the region.
But ratification in the U.S. has been bogged down by the congressional majority Democrats who traditionally oppose free trade. Some of the fiercest opponents represent states with high stakes in opening South Korea's beef and auto markets, the two most contentious issues.
South Korea maintains a partial import ban on American meat products, concerned by health hazards from a 2003 case of mad cow disease. Some in the U.S. claim the FTA fails to rectify the heavily skewed auto trade in Seoul's favor.
Sen. Barack Obama, one of the leading Democratic presidential contenders, told an audience in Pittsburgh that the FTA with South Korea would hurt American workers.
"What I refuse to accept is that we have to sign trade deals like the South Korea agreement that are bad for American workers," he said.
Kearns, who works for senior Democrats Reps. Charles Rangel and Sander Levin, said the Congress is looking for assurances that the South Korean market will remain open. "That's true of beef, it's true of autos," he said.
He argued that South Korea still imposes unnecessary obstacles to international trade, which it has pledged not to do under World Trade Organization negotiations.
These technical barriers to trade, Kearns said, are hard to litigate, and there is not much incentive to do so "if the expectation is that another mole is simply going to crop up as soon as the case is over."
Dennis Halpin, a Republican professional staff member for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said South Korean President Lee Myung-bak may not get ahead much on the FTA when he visits Washington later this month.
"The consolation prize will be the visa waiver. They are probably going to sign an MOU (memorandum of understanding)," Halpin said.
South Korea wants to be included in the U.S. visa waiver program, which would allow its citizens to visit and stay in the U.S. without visas for up to 90 days.
