South Korea-In no rush to re-negotiate beef deal.

SOUTH KOREA.THE END OF ANY BUSH AGREEMENTS.

Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said yesterday that Korea would not need to respond to a U.S. request for renegotiating the free-trade agreement signed in June 2007. "We do not need to make a response even if the U.S. makes a request," Kim said on a local radio program.

"If one were rational and reasonable, renegotiating the deal would not be right." The fate of the trade deal, which would be the largest either country has established with a single economy, is up in the air. U.S. President Barack Obama has criticized the deal as "flawed," saying it disadvantages American auto manufacturers.

Whether or not Korea would approve of "additional negotiations," such as those initiated over U.S. beef import standards, resulting in more eased conditions agreed upon on April 18, Kim said the situation was different because it involved international standards of the World Organization for Animal Health. "The Korea-U.S. FTA itself isn’t about standards but about striking a balance of mutual benefits," the minister said. The official stressed that it also was not beneficial for reports to keep raising the issue of holding an additional negotiation, as such notion could incite temptation in Washington.

"Either a renegotiation or an additional negotiation would pose a burden on public taxes. Such a matter would require the approval of the National Assembly," Kim said.

On the issue of American automakers desperately seeking to get a firm grip on the Korean market, the policymaker stated the answer was the FTA. Some U.S. policymakers have been voicing the need for renegotiating parts of the auto sector agreement, as well as for other manufactured goods. U.S. opponents have been arguing that Korea sold more than 700,000 cars in the United States in 2007, about 100 times more than the total of American cars shipped into Korea, to illustrate the imbalance.

But experts here say that Washington needs to be aware that the U.S.-owned GM-Daewoo vehicles manufactured on Korean soil account for a big share of the vehicles bought by Korean consumers at home. "The accord carries everything that the U.S. auto industry has been wanting for a long time," the minister stressed