When you read news like this in Yonhap or headlines like this in the Herald Business Daily, you gotta wonder whether the FTA talks have a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding. I guess only time will tell.
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29 Comments
The Yanks should go ahead and sign FTA’s with almost anybody and everybody they can (as long as it’s in the best interests of the US) and if countries don’t really want it or drag their feet too much, it’s their loss. Korea would definitely benefit from an FTA but with anti-foreigner sentiment growing these days regarding investment by foreigners, maybe it’s time for the US to look for free trade partners that really want it (once the FTA talks fail in Korea).
http://www.iht.com/articles/20.....sxlone.php
I liked that political boilerplate quote from Dennis Kucinich. He must say those same lines about once a month.
I’ve just about given up on cheap Chilean wine and buying “Quaker Oats” grits over here any time soon.
Poor Mr. Kucinich. He is a might testy because he is afraid someone might outsource his job to India.
“The free trade agreement will bolster an alliance among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan in the region, prompting China, Russia and North Korea to strengthen their strategic ties,” Chung said. “Eventually, South Korea and North Korea will confront each other economically.”
Oooh.. the thought of that sends shivers up my spine. I wonder if South Korea is up to the task.
FTA is a very difficult subject.
Even though both parties, Uri and Hannara, are for it, FTA contains much details.
Farmers are dead set against opening up the rice market. Movie-makers want to continue quota system. Other business leaders are wondering if their business is targetted by the US.
They all try to read into American conspiracy theory when there is none. Koreans who have been hurt in the past are wondering why Americans are doing this.
The real reason for doubting the benefit of FTA is that Japan has not joined FTA with the US. Korea is afraid to do anything different from Japan. Up to now, Korea has followed the Japan’s success story to the letter.
However, that also means Korea will have to go through Japan’s painful 1990’s recession. Heavy depreciation of real estate market and high jobless rate for the young.
Is Korea willing to follow Japan to this eventuality? Could FTA be a win-win situation that can overcome this upcoming recession?
I don’t give a damn about rice, but I wish I had a more variety of choices when I go to the movies where the only choices I have are the good movies that opened up everywhere else in the world three months ago except in Korea and a bunch of lame Korean movies I wouldn’t even waste my hard drive space by downloading them illegaly.
OK, forget the FTA. I wasn’t exactly jonesing for cheap American rice anyway. But how about a FBTA (B for beer)?
Chilean wines are still taxed, albeit less than other countries’ wines: despite the FTA, the 수입세 on Chilean wines is 10% – instead of 30% for European/US wines – on top of which other taxes are applied – which explains why Chilean wines, while cheaper than their European/US counterparts, aren’t that cheap. The real cheap ones are not worth even looking at, believe me…
As for rice, those living/spending a lot of time in Korea will appreciate a cut on import taxes, as it’ll make not only rice, but other agricultural products cheaper across the board… Dunno about you guys, but I eat more often than I watch movies…
Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (Chile) = 38,000 won per bottle!
It has been that price ever since being imported here in 2002, before the FTA.
The middle man must be gouging.
Elephants will break dance on the head of a pin before the Dear Leader allows South Korea to have an FTA with the USA. He will mobilise every stooge he can to prevent it.
C’mon, we all know what FTA with the US means: Favors The Americans
We’ve known that in Canada for years, and it’s brutally obvious in the way the Softwood lumber dispute was “resolved”–after winning repeatedly in court and exhausting nearly every possible appeal available to the US, we had to agree to give up most of the duties levied against us and pay the Americans’ legal fees before we could get back to business as usual. Not a bad way for the US to “lose” a trade dispute, if you ask me.
That’s not to say that it may not be in the interest of Korea to have an agreement with the US, as long as they recognize that, while the stick offered may be of some value, Korea will get the short end every time.
The question in these “talks” is whether the Koreans will get tired of being bullied and head for the door, or whether cooler heads will prevail and Korea will assume the requisite nose-to-bottom position that a FTA with the US requires.
jameslayne,
dude, at least the movies open in the same season there. here in japan, most movies take about 6 months to release here, if it’s released at all. and the theaters charge 18 bucks (2,000 yen) a pop. ouch!
Let’s get something straight - Korea needs the FTA badly. We are running out of aces and, historically, isolationism has been our achille’s heel while opening up to the world has been our savior. Had it not been for the Korean War, we would never have opened up and would still be poor today. It forced us to open up to world influences and industrialize. When Park Cheong Hee, great leader that he was, subsequently opened Korea to trade, Korea suddenly prospered.
As for favoring the Americans, I don’t see any problem there. Unless we become more competitive and open we are doomed. Trade is the lifeblood of a nation with an insufficient market to support itself. Jeofery Jones recently stated that the Korean manufacturing labor costs are 20% higher than in the US. Meat, vegetables and rice are far higher in price. The more we isolate ourselves from free trade the more our people suffer.
Yes, some sectors are not competitive and will suffer. The negotiations will not be easy. But the conventional wisdom in Washington is that when the Fast Track Authority expires in July 2007, it will be renewed another year. (That is unless the Democrats prevent it). Will it be painful? Just look at the alternative…
It would be hypocritical for America to insist that Korea must open up its sensitive rice market. America kept its sugar market firmly closed to Australian farmers in its FTA with Australia. If Americans concentrate more on the services market than on the silly agricultural sector, there is a better chance of success of reaching an agreement.
Isn’t South Korea bound to open up its agricultural market (eventually) under its WTO obligations anyhow? I fail to see why this is such a huge issue. After all, the agricultural sector probably won’t modernize until it’s forced to. In the long run, it might do them a lot more good to have to actually compete with another country’s rice imports before they’re forced to do so against the whole world in another 10 years.
It’s also somewhat boggling that South Korea wants the US to accept goods from the Kaesong Industrial Complex… Unless, of course, the real aim of the administration is to keep that as an easy ‘out’ in the negotiations. Somehow, I can’t see the Bush administration opening the US market to subsidizing the North Korean regime through the Kaesong ‘back door’.
The South Koreans will not be getting the short end of the stick by signing an FTA with the US. What would be the point of signing one, if that were the case? And Koreans are excellent, hard-nosed negotiators, so if anything, the US will have to work hard to not get the short end of the stick themselves.
Does the US sometimes play unfairly (eg. softwood dispute in Canada)? Sure, from that example, it certainly sounds like it, but overall, Canada has benefitted tremendously (as has the US) from having an FTA with the US.
skindleshanks, I beg to differ. Canada’s economy is booming, HUGELY better than it was before NAFTA. We now have a 30 year low in unemployment and a 30 year high of the Canadian dollar. Our commie governments have delivered nine consecutive budget surplusses.
Yes, the softwood lumber thing sucks but 98% of trade goes across the border without a hitch. Canada’s current account surpulus with the USA is massively in our favour.
BTW, why would any Canadian teach Englishie in Korea when you can make more money doing the same thing here while at the same time making mega-strong Canadian dollars? I was in Mexico last Februrary and man, did the Canabucks go far!
In 1995 I got a Canadian dollar for W520. Now it is W860.
I never said NAFTA wasn’t good for Canada. It has many advantages. But it’s not free trade, and it’s not fair trade. The US will win every time. As long as we can profit from the leftovers, us dogs scrounging for scraps will benefit, too.
I’m not sure what you mean about teaching English–I’m enjoying not paying the thirty-something percent tax I’d be paying if I was teaching back home. The money isn’t what brought me to Korea (my wife did), but it’s doing well enough to keep me here.
skindleshanks you make some really good points. I had a very easy life in Korea but when one has kids, eventually he/she has to return to Canada. Korea is not a good place to raise children with a lack of public facilities, etc.
I don’t know much about farming in the US, but my friend’s family from Nebraska seems pretty content with the farming life, thanks to government subsidies and certain items being protected from foreign competition.
I do know that the US overproduces agricultural goods. That’s why they would even get rid of some stored grain by shipping them out to needy countries.
What the FTA would do is not modernize South Korean agriculture or make it better off in the short term.
Heck, within the imidiate 10 years, you will see destroyed lives, abandoned farms, and these farmers moving to Seoul, most likely to overcrowd it and do jobs you would shudder to do.
In the long term, free trade is good, because it makes countries focus on what they can do best.
A South Korean farmer would sell his soul to trade places with a Nebraskan farmer. I am certain of that.
> within the imidiate 10 years, you will see destroyed
> lives, abandoned farms, and these farmers moving to
> Seoul, most likely to overcrowd it and do jobs you
> would shudder to do.
We have already seen that here for a decade.
Part of this FTA agricultural-goods-equation is that very
few S Korean men under 40 want to be a farmer anymore at
all, and nearly zero young Korean women are willing to
marry one. This despite the already-generous government
subsidies… Korean agriculture is dying on its own, thru
unstoppable demographics.
The “farmer’s activists” making all the noise must represent
or even comprise the few who want to continue an agricultural
lifestyle. The urban Koreans still romanticize the farmers
and want to keep them going as a symbol of “real Korean
culture”, is what is really driving this as a political
issue — the same dynamic operates very strongly in France
– in addition to abstract fears that food imports could
suddenly become off by bigger enemy countries someday
(distrust in dependence on global markets, although their
energy supply is very much dependent on them already).
The Rice farmers squealed like stuck pigs over allowing 4% US rice to hit their protected market. They are the people screwing Korea. Heaven forbid that people should have affordable goods. One has to ask why Korean cars are cheaper in the US. If Korea is to dodge the upcoming stretch.
I don’t see what the fuss is all about. An FTA, once ratified, merely becomes the law of the Republic of Korea — to be observed and enforced with the same governmental commitment as is applied to the enforcement of traffic law, zoning regulations and building codes, anti-bribery, anti-graft, and anti-corruption provisions of the Criminal Code, anti-cartel provisions of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, the laws on prostitution, trademark and copyright laws, et cetera.
B.C., The thought of a level playing field does not sit well with the kill my neighbor’s pig crowd.
Could these girls go to USA to promote Korea?
http://etv.donga.com/newsclip/.....6040001184
Much better than ugly Commies, for sure.
If the link does not work, go to http://www.donga.com (one of the biggest newspaper in Korea) and click on the girl’s face.
These girls are better looking than Panami(the Korean playboy elect) who looks like a boy.
Nice link baduk! I enjoyed it.
Btw, would repeatedly zooming in on their crotches be considered exploitation? I wonder which native English speaker got his hands on the camera.
korea will most likely follow japan and what they have done in opening up their own rice markets. from my understanding, japan has focused on diversification within the japanese rice production industry (thereby producing many high-value, varied strains of rice sold domestically at premium prices) and diversified crops on lands that were once was rice paddies (albeit with subsidization). these are fairly straightforward solutions.
Shindleshanks, you say that an FTA is not free trade nor fair trade? What are you talking about? It’s relatively free and it’s relatively fair (just like capitalism, it’s not perfect, but a hell of alot better than any other systems out there). Sure, it could be freer and fairer, but the benefits are real for both sides. To claim that the other side in an FTA with the US doesn’t get a fair deal is pure crap. Why would anyone sign such a deal if they didn’t get a good deal out of it? Are you trying to claim that the US got a better deal out of NAFTA than Canada did? Ridiculous, it has been beneficial to both sides, despite the small number of problems (compared to the huge volume of overall trade).
What about the many countries who are export-driven sending their cheap exports to the US while putting up huge tarrif barriers to imports, such as Korea or Japan, in the past? Would you say this was unfair to the US?
The Koreans do follow the Japanese however, I think we are going to see some dead farmers over the rice issue. This is too close to home.