<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:"Trebuchet MS";
panose-1:2 11 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";
color:navy;
font-weight:normal;
font-style:normal;
text-decoration:none none;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"'>If a majority of the majority doesn't support it, we shouldn't be passing another failed trade deal.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>US Democrats uneasy on deal<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>By FOSTER KLUG - July 6, 2010<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/265490/us-democrats-uneasy-deal<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>WASHINGTON (AP) – If Barack Obama is to push through a long-stalled US-South Korea free trade deal, he is going to need something rare during his presidency: Republican support.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Members of Obama's Democratic Party are balking after his announcement last week at a high-profile global summit that he will revive the accord to cut tariffs and other barriers to trade in goods and services.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Democratic worries about South Korean restrictions on auto and beef trade sank the agreement after the Bush administration and Seoul signed it three years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>It now has Obama's support, but his party still shows little enthusiasm ahead of crucial November congressional elections. Labor unions and other core Democratic supporters say foreign trade agreements steal American jobs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>That puts Obama in the unusual position of relying on help from Republicans, who have opposed in near-perfect unison his biggest initiatives, including his overhauls of health care and financial regulations.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Republicans traditionally favor foreign trade deals more than Democrats do, and they are lining up behind Obama's push to settle a pact that the White House says could boost exports of American products by $10 billion a year. It would be the largest US trade deal since a 1994 agreement with Canada and Mexico. Republican Rep. Dave Reichert says the Korea accord "has the potential to create thousands of American jobs and continue a partnership with a democratically.''<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Obama at the Toronto summit of the Group of 20 economies directed his trade envoys to work out differences with their Korean counterparts by the time he visits Seoul in November for the next G-20. That would allow him to send a deal to Congress early next year. Democratic backlash was quick.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Rep. Louise Slaughter, chairwoman of the influential House of Representatives Rules Committee, expressed surprise that Obama would "try to slide this poorly written trade deal past the American public when Congress has already said that the deal is not good for our economy or workers.''<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Opponents say the accord does not knock down enough barriers to the sale of American cars in Korea. There also is frustration with South Korean restrictions on American beef imports.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Bowing to those worries, Obama initially refused to send the deal to Congress for a vote. Then, early this year, Obama championed a drive to double US exports during the next five years. Part of that push, he said, would be strengthened trade ties with South Korea. Now, after Obama's commitment<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>in Toronto, he must win over Democrats.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Lawmakers will face pressure not to block a deal that supporters say strengthens ties with an important US ally at a moment of high tension on the Korean peninsula. The United States wants to bolster Seoul after a South Korean-led international investigation found that a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>During the G-20, Obama lavished South Korean President Lee Myung-bak with attention. Besides the trade deal, Obama announced an agreement, coveted by the Koreans, to delay until 2015 a plan for the US military to hand over to Seoul command of troops on the Korean peninsula if war should break out between North and South Korea. Obama also criticized North Korea over the sunken warship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>"There is a foreign policy imperative to move forward with the ratification of this agreement,'' said Jeffrey Schott, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif";color:navy'>Another White House argument will point to Seoul's warning that the United States could lose hundreds of thousands of jobs if it should fail to act and a South Korean trade agreement with the European Union were ratified. It is unclear how far South Korea is willing to bend in talks with Washington<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></body></html>