Obama Vows to Push For Korea Trade Pact
SEOUL — U.S. President Barack Obama pledged Thursday morning to ratify a free-trade agreement with South Korea that has been stuck for two years, challenging the U.S. Congress to separate South Korea from other Asian nations enjoying vast trade surpluses with the U.S.
He also said the U.S. and its allies will draft a package of sanctions “over the next several weeks” to show an intransigent Iran “the importance of having consequences.”
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ReutersU.S. President Barack Obama greeted South Korean President Lee Myung-bak during a bilateral meeting at the Blue House in Seoul Thursday.
Mr. Obama concluded a four-nation Asian trip with a morning of meetings here with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and a brief news conference. Both leaders said a free-trade accord could be reached that would deepen the nations’ ties and boost jobs in the U.S.
President Lee cautioned that South Korea is already moving forward with trade deals with Europe that are opening Korean markets to U.S. competitors.
“In the United States, there is a misperception that the [free-trade agreement] once passed will only benefit Korea and will be detrimental to American consumers, which is not true,” Mr. Lee said.
Mr. Lee characterized as “minuscule” the trade surplus that South Korea has with the U.S., a characterization Mr. Obama agreed with. The U.S. president challenged Congress, which is run by his own party, to show more sophistication on trade issues.
“There’s a tendency to lump all of Asia together when Congress looks at trade agreements and says it appears this is a one-way street,” Mr. Obama said.
South Korea’s trade surplus with the U.S. last year was $13.3 billion out of total trade of $81.5 billion, according to U.S. figures.
The free-trade agreement, the largest the U.S. has negotiated since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in the early 1990s, is expected to boost that more than $80 billion in annual two-way trade between South Korea and the U.S. by $10 billion to $20 billion about five years after ratification. U.S. food producers and auto makers stand to gain the most because Korean trade barriers are currently high in those markets.
But U.S. officials in recent weeks have said they may want changes in the auto section of the agreement, though they haven’t announced specifics. South Korean officials are reluctant to reopen the pact because of domestic political pressure. They also note that auto tariffs in both countries evaporate upon ratification and that there is a so-called snapback provision that allows the U.S. to reimplement tariffs if it believes South Korea is violating the pact.
Also Thursday, Mr. Obama said he will send his special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to the nuclear-armed dictatorship on Dec. 8 to try to pull Pyongyang back into denuclearization talks.
Mr. Lee ended a decadelong policy of economic aid to North Korea with no strings attached, insisting it be conditioned on progress on disarmament. When Mr. Obama took office in January promising to reach out to North Korea, some South Koreans feared the two countries’ approach to the North would fall out of sync.
Instead, North Korea tested weapons from March to July, including ballistic missiles and a nuclear device, and Messrs. Obama and Lee worked closely to impose new penalties on Pyongyang.
Source: Wall Street Journal
