[CTC] Oregon Trade Protesters at Schrader fundraiser

[Andrew Gussert]

Obama risks party showdown on S.Korea deal

By Shaun Tandon (AFP)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jXc3NbMVbqypa3su7mNSooP8l
f_g

 

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama is risking a revolt within his own
party as he presses ahead on a free trade agreement with South Korea,
setting the stage for a showdown after November legislative elections.

Organized labor, a critical support base for Obama's Democratic Party, and
several Democrats have already vowed to fight the deal which they say would
hurt workers.

"To try and advance the Korean FTA when so many workers are still struggling
to find work would simply move our economy backward," said Representative
Louise Slaughter, a Democrat who leads the powerful Rules Committee.

The deal would be the largest for the United States since the the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico in 1994.

The United States and South Korea completed painstaking negotiations in 2007
but neither nation's legislature has ratified it.

Obama himself criticized the deal as a senator. But as president, Obama has
found South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak to be one of his closest allies
and has said he is convinced of the benefits of boosting trade with Asia's
fourth largest economy.

"It will strengthen our commercial ties and create enormous potential
economic benefits and create jobs here in the United States, which is my
number one priority," Obama said in Toronto.

Obama said he would send the agreement to Congress soon after November --
the month of a Group of 20 summit in South Korea as well as congressional
elections in which Democrats are seen as vulnerable to losses.

Ironically, the rival Republican Party, while opposed to many of Obama's key
priorities such as climate and immigration legislation, may offer greater
support than Democrats on the South Korea free trade agreement.

"Before the midterm elections, he cannot submit this to Congress. It's
impossible," said Anthony Kim, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation,
a conservative think-tank.

"But after the election, there will be a new set of minds. It will be an
uphill battle -- there is no doubt about that -- but I think it may come to
life next year," he said.

Sabina Dewan, associate director of international economic policy at the
left-leaning Center for American Progress, said that any trade deal would be
controversial at a time that the wobbly US economy is voters' top concern.

But she noted that Obama has set a goal of doubling US exports as a way to
fuel growth and that, in a globalized economy, the United States risked
being left behind.

"Given the domestic climate and the challenges that President Obama is
facing right now, he would not have picked this battle if he didn't truly
believe in the merits of it," she said.

"Of course, any time you have a new trade agreement you have a restructuring
of economic activity, which means that some people will be better off while
others will have to adjust to change," she said.

Former Democratic president Bill Clinton championed NAFTA despite staunch
opposition from many in his party who have argued, then and now, that it has
encouraged manufacturers to shift jobs to Mexico in search of cheaper labor.

Opposition to the South Korea deal has focused more on specific sectors,
with legislators seeking more access for US autos and beef.

Beef is particularly sensitive for Lee after South Koreans held major street
protests in 2008 charging that the US imports were unsafe. South Korea has
resisted renegotiating any of the deal.

For South Korean policymakers, free trade is seen as a crucial strategy to
boost the competitiveness of an economy lying between giants Japan and
China. Seoul has also pursued trade pacts with the European Union and India.

Han Duk-Soo, the South Korean ambassador to Washington, said he has met with
35 -- or more than one-third -- of US senators and 135 House members to
promote the deal which he argued would create some 72,000 US jobs.

Han last week joined three Democrats and three Republicans who set up a
caucus in Congress in support of the deal.

"For three years, Congress and the White House have wrung their hands while
this no-cost job creation measure sits cooling on the dinner table," said
one of the members, Republican Representative Peter Roskam of Illinois.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20100706/95751490/attachment-0002.htm>