Congressmen urge Obama to submit Korea FTA for early ratification

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (Yonhap) -- A group of U.S. congressmen Friday urged the Obama administration to move quickly to present the pending free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama as a way to help revive the slumping U.S. economy.

"A pro-growth trade agenda should be integral to that economic recovery,???
Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said in a news
conference also attended by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), House Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI).
Baucus called on the Obama administration to "engage aggressively in trade and
that includes trade agreements," saying that "Congress cannot act unilaterally.
We have to wait until (the FTAs are) sent up and I'm hopeful that they will be."
The Obama administration has been shying away from the Korea FTA amid fears in
the Democratic Congress that it will undercut jobs in the worst recession in
decades.
The Korea FTA, signed in 2007, is still awaiting ratification by both the U.S.
Congress and South Korea's National Assembly, which has not yet begun
deliberating it, citing growing protectionist sentiments in the U.S.
While campaigning, Obama opposed ratification of what he called a "badly flawed"
free trade agreement with South Korea, saying that South Korea exports more than
700,000 autos to the U.S. annually while importing just 6,000.
South Korea disputes those figures, saying the export numbers include 250,000
units made in the U.S. at an Alabama plant owned by South Korea's largest
automaker, Hyundai, and exclude more than 125,000 automobiles sold in South Korea
by GM Daewoo, a Korean subsidiary of U.S. automaker General Motors.
Obama earlier this month urged the struggling U.S. auto industry to restructure
itself to compete with South Korean and Japanese cars.
"If we don't use this crisis as an opportunity to start retooling, then we will
never catch up and be able to compete effectively against Japanese automakers,
Korean automakers, and we will find ourselves continuing to slide," he said.
At a Senate confirmation hearing last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
proposed that South Korea "re-engage negotiations on these vital provisions of
the agreement," urging Seoul to provide "genuine improvements" in the auto and
beef markets.
Rangel proposed in a March 1, 2007, letter co-written by Trade Subcommittee
Chairman Sander Levin (D-MI) that the Bush administration change the auto
provisions in the FTA in the final phase of the negotiations in order to open the
Korean automotive market.
However, he toned down a bit this time, saying, "When friendly countries want to
get a job done, there's a way to do it."
Rangel was apparently addressing concerns by both sides that any failure to
ratify the Korea FTA will have an adverse impact on the decades-old alliance with
South Korea, the seventh biggest trading partner for the U.S.
A congressional hearing is scheduled for Thursday to approve U.S. Trade
Representative nominee Ron Kirk, who will play a pivotal role in the Obama
administration's handling of the pending FTAs.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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