Seattle PI

Thursday, September 7, 2006 · Last updated 9:33 a.m. PT

Protesters, lawmakers demand openness in U.S.-SKorea trade talks

GENE JOHNSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

 

SEATTLE -- Members of farm, labor and environmental organizations protested in the streets as U.S. and South Korean negotiators began a third round of talks toward a free-trade agreement.

The hundreds of protesters, from both countries, criticized a number of aspects of the trade talks, but primarily argued that it's wrong for governments to make decisions affecting millions of people in closed meetings.

"All we really want is to know what is being talked about," Kimyoung Hwan, vice president of the Korean Beef Association, said Wednesday through an interpreter, amid banging drums and chants of "Free trade is a lie."

"Once we know what is being talked about, then we could think about what steps we could take to make it better. The trade representatives are keeping everything behind closed doors and only sending out the information they want people to know about."

Some South Korean lawmakers also weren't happy about the talks. On Thursday, a group of 23 lawmakers petitioned the Constitutional Court, claiming the government's decision to embark on free trade talks with the United States without parliamentary approval violated their rights.

They also claimed that the government is not providing enough information on the negotiations, hindering lawmakers' right to review the process, said Lee Chan-jin, one of their lawyers.

 

 

"With the government's unilateral pursuit of the negotiations, the parliamentary right to approve the conclusion or ratification of a treaty ... has been virtually destroyed," the lawmakers said in their petition to the court, a special court that deals specifically with constitutional issues.

 

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which is handling the negotiations, had no immediate comment on the petition.

The United States is seeking to eliminate high South Korean tariffs and taxes on American goods such as cars and agricultural products, and to obtain greater access to Korean markets for pharmaceuticals. An agreement would also be expected to reduce tariffs on Korean goods such as textiles entering the U.S., but those tariffs are substantially lower to begin with.

The governments of both countries have argued that a free-trade agreement would help drive economic growth and increase the income of each by billions of dollars. But American labor groups worry about companies moving jobs to Korea, while Korean farmers fear that they would be unable to compete with American agricultural products.

Hwan said the 15,000 Korean livestock farmers represented by his organization are only able to survive because of South Korea's 40 percent tariff on beef imports. He also said the U.S. has not done enough to protect consumers from mad cow disease.

"To reduce that tariff to no tariff, it would mean that not only would the livestock farmers go out of business, but also the people in the industries related to livestock farming," he said. "For the South Korean government to pursue this trade agreement without thinking of alternatives for the farmers it will put out of business is irresponsible."

South Korean Trade Minister Hyun-Chong Kim has acknowledged that Korean farmers would be worse off under a free-trade agreement, but said his government plans to spend $119 billion over the next decade to help affected farmers.

Steve Norton, a spokesman for the U.S. trade representative's office, said Wednesday that rice will likely be the subject of some of the most intense negotiations this week. South Korea is hoping to protect its rice market by excluding it from the free-trade deal.

Other topics on this week's agenda include automobiles, textiles and goods produced by South Korean companies in Kaesong, an industrial zone in North Korea run jointly by the two countries. South Korea wants goods produced there to be subject to the free-trade agreement. The U.S. has opposed that idea, saying a deal should only cover goods manufactured in South Korea.

South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy, is the United States' seventh-largest trading partner, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. The bilateral free-trade agreement could be the biggest of its kind for the U.S. since the North American Free Trade Agreement was reached in 1993.

Wendy Cutler, the chief U.S. negotiator, is leading a team of 100 representatives from about 20 government agencies. Korea sent more than 200 representatives for the new round of talks, in which the sides hope to begin to hammer out the specifics of an agreement.

South Korea and the U.S. held their first round of free-trade negotiations in Washington, D.C., in June. The second round was in Seoul a month later.

Both countries hope to have an agreement in place by the end of the year. The clock is ticking for the U.S. because President Bush's authority to "fast track" a deal expires in mid-2007. Fast-tracking allows U.S. envoys to negotiate an agreement that can be submitted to Congress for a yes-or-no vote without amendments.