US-South Korea beef dispute escalates
Korean opposition protests the reopening of markets to US imports, threatening a free-trade agreement
posted May 31, 2008 at 12:30 p.m. EDT
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Reporter Donald Kirk discusses the controversy in South Korea over US beef imports.
Prospects for an FTA suffered a severe blow this month when Barack Obama, the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, wrote President Bush, saying the FTA is "badly flawed" and advising him not to send the agreement to Congress for ratification.
Mr. Obama, basing his criticism in part on complaints from the US motor-vehicle industry, said the deal "would give Korean exports essentially unfettered access to the US market and would eliminate our best opportunity for obtaining genuinely reciprocal market access in one of the world's largest economies."
Larry Niksch, an Asia specialist at the Congressional Research Service, believes Obama's position means the free-trade agreement has "no chance" in Congress while Mr. Bush is in office. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's competitor for the Democratic nomination, has already voiced her strenuous opposition.
Niksch notes, however, that Obama "keeps the door open to do something about the agreement, but probably in a modified way," if he is elected president.
Given the emotions in both Korea and the US, Donald Gross, adjunct fellow of the Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says "the best course would be if the current US administration were to hold off" on pressing for passage of the free-trade agreement.
"No one who cares about the US-South Korean relations wishes to see this thing go down to flaming defeat," says Mr. Gross. "For this to be voted down is very painful for the whole relationship." Thus, he says, "my personal hope is for it not to be submitted to the U.S. Congress."
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