Bush urges Congress to ratify Korea FTA by year-end

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President George W. Bush urged Congress
Friday to ratify free trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama by year's
end.
The Senate is set to reconvene for a lame-duck session next week, focusing on the
ailing auto industry, while the House has yet to nail down any plans.
"The United States Congress can take the lead by approving free trade agreements
with Colombia, Panama and South Korea before adjourning for the year," Bush said
in a weekly Saturday radio address, according to a transcript released by the
White House a day earlier.
Bush made the remarks while advocating free markets as a way of muddling through
the current global economic crisis.
"This is a decisive moment for the global economy. But the crisis was not a
failure of the free-market system," he said. "And the answer is not to try to
reinvent that system; it is to fix the problems we face, make the reforms we
need, and move forward with the free-market principles that have delivered
prosperity and hope to people around the world."
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Bush agreed in April to push for
parliamentary approval of the free trade deal, signed in June last year, by the
end of 2008.
South Korea's majority ruling party is poised to ratify it in the ongoing
session, which ends in December.
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats, who control both
the House and Senate, however, oppose the trade deal as it is, citing the need to
address an imbalance in automobile trade.
Obama proposed that the struggling U.S. auto industry should benefit from the
US$700 billion bailout package mainly for the falling U.S. financial industry,
while Bush opposed the idea, fearing any aid to the auto industry will have a
domino effect on other industries.
Reports said Bush and Obama may strike a deal for the passage of the pending free
trade deals and a subsidy to the auto industry.
Bush said that during Saturday's G20 economic summit in Washington, he will "work
with other leaders to establish principles for reform, such as making markets
more transparent, and ensuring that markets, firms and financial products are
properly regulated."
"While reforms in the financial sector are essential, the long-term solution to
today's problems is sustained economic growth," he said. "And the surest path to
that growth is free markets and free people."
hdh@yna.co.kr