United States-Fiece opposition to FTA in South Korea.
UNITED STATES-KOREA FTA NOT A DONE DEAL.
The U.S. trade representative-designate Ron Kirk said during a Senate confirmation hearing on Monday (local time), "The president has said, and I agree, the agreement as it is just isn’t fair. In the case of Korea, the current status quo simply isn’t acceptable. And if we don’t get that right, we’ll be prepared to step away from that." He also said it was incorrect to describe Americans, who are worried about jobs being lost, as being protectionist.
It is true that the Obama administration has a negative view of the current Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. During the presidential campaign last year, U.S. President Barack Obama said the FTA was "badly flawed," while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during her confirmation hearing in January that the United States had failed to secure fair terms of trade in the pact with Korea in areas including automobiles. Considering this atmosphere, it is still inappropriate for the USTR, who is Washington’s chief negotiating representative regarding the bilateral FTA, to say his country is willing to "step away" even before formally assuming his position. His comments threaten a trade war without even discussing the matter with the other side, unless Korea makes unconditional concessions.
Obama used every chance he got to strongly criticize former president George W. Bush for failing to ratify the "Kyoto Protocol," which limits carbon dioxide emissions. Obama argued that Bush had damaged America’s credibility by ignoring the international accord signed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Following more than 14 months of negotiations, Korea and the United States agreed on an FTA deal in April of 2007. The only thing left to do was for lawmakers on both sides to ratify it. Yet which country in the world will be able to trust the United States -- the world’s most powerful country -- if it says the deal "simply isn’t acceptable," just because a new administration has stepped in?
The biggest reason behind the Obama administration’s stance on the FTA is said to be the need to protect the U.S. automobile industry. But even Senator John McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate, said recently, "I think the best thing that could happen to General Motors, in my view, is they go into Chapter 11." The Wall Street Journal also pointed out that critics of the FTA cite the imbalance in auto markets, but ignore the fact that Korean carmakers are doing a better job than their American counterparts when it comes to producing automobiles that U.S. consumers like. The U.S.. auto industry is being dishonest when it tries to use the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement as a sacrificial lamb, while ignoring the fundamental reason behind their loss of competitive edge.
The Korean administration was impacted heavily, while the country experienced a divisive crisis due to the FTA. If the United States demands a re-negotiation of the deal, then Korea may experience incidents like the candlelight protests last spring, when the public hit the streets to oppose imports of American beef. The Korea-U.S. free trade agreement took a tremendous amount of effort to achieve. It contains parts that are both satisfactory and unsatisfactory for both sides. The minute one side demands to re-negotiate this deal, the difficult balance that was reached will crumble. If the United States gains concessions from Korea in the auto segment of the deal, then what is America willing to concede to Korea? If the framework of the FTA is broken, then the United States stands to lose international credibility as well as commerce. Both sides must re-examine their positions on the FTA as soon as possible and look for a way to resolve this problem.
