Dram Man on the FTA
Dram Man has probably been following the issue as closely as any K-blogger, and details six reasons why “you can stick a fork in this baby.”
Update: That may explain why the government is now asserting that it will stick with Kaesong, a non-starter with the U.S. side, as an FTA must-have. This sounds like the position of someone who wants to satisfy his base, and who knows that there won’t be an FTA.
Update 2: The U.S. postion on Kaesong continues to be “no way.”
As an exporter Korea needs FTA now that global WTO seems to be declining.
I think the writing was on the wall a few months ago when Roh delayed starting FTA talks to await local elections.
Very strange watching Korea trash its military alliance and economic relations simultaneously. Don’t see that kind of arrogance too often among countries.
Roh didn’t pull his ideas out of thin air (although it often seems like that). In many cases he is acting according to widely held notions of the “progressive” Korean or Hankyoreh world view. We should not be surprised.
It’s not just SK that is having problems in trade talks with the US. Many countries in the WTO are blaming the US for a current breakdown in global trade negotiations. Those countries include the EU and the developing nations.
Let’s cut the chase, shall we?
NO (whose father-in-law who was die hard commie killed 3 innocent people using bamboo spear) does NOT WANT FTA WITH USA!
Get it? It’s all show.
What ahole NO and his sidekick traitor Lee uniFICTION puppets want is 1 thing:
Bring legitimacy to MURDERER Kim and DPRK by slipping condition of US acceptance of products made in Kaesong! This is the ONLY reason – to help out dear leader MURDERER!
DPRK cannot export so use KS to funnel exports of ALL kind thru ROK. And you guessed it – ALL democrats and republicans vehemently oppose this term in JOKE FTA.
Let this FTA die it’s own well deserved death.
Mi-Hwa, the US is not having problems in bi-lateral trade talks, many have been concluded in the last 6 years. See this link for details
http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Section_Index.html
WTO is a whole other thing. The US, EU and the other rich countries differ among themselves while differing with countries like India, Brazil and others like them. The US is no more to blame than all the others.
Yo Mihwa. Are you stuck in some kind of time warp or what? “Let’s do the time warp again!”
Can’t get out of WTO, huh? Listen, subject of this discussion is FTA, OK? Not WTO and its ugly violence infested protest galore liberal orgy which WTO brings all over the world. Is WTO fair? No but who said world trade is fair? Is it like aero sum game to some countries – yeah and so what?
Last time protectionism went up resulted in one of the greatest depression followed by WWII. And yeah we learned history so as not to repeat it.
I don’t know why everyone is surprised by the fact that the US is hard to negotiate with regarding trade. We face trade deficits and barriers everywhere you look. Countries seem to view trade with the US like they’re stepping up to the welfare line.
One of the WTO guys said something like the wealthiest nation in the world with the highest standard of living should be able to lower farm subsidies” or something like that. Whatever. We didn’t get where we are by handing it out.
The funny thing is they act surprised when the US doesn’t agree to put itself in a worse situation than it is already in trade-wise.
I’ve said since day one that the FTA on the Korean side was set up as a way for Uri hopefuls to be seen as breaking away from Roh and pummling him in order to try to win favor with more of the voting public — a voting public that likes to view portraits of Uncle Bully year to year.
This and the environmental issue related to the base handovers are two great items for Uri to reach into the masses not only because they do share a common perception with a good many Average Koreans but also because these issues will have long legs – they will continue for the rest of this year and well into the next.
Roh is an odd bird and puts people around him who say stupid things at odd times
but I have to agree
they are not speaking too far out in left field.
I firmly believe the reason Roh and Uri are falling —
—is not because of their policy ideas —
but because for the first time, a power in the Blue house is pushing those ideas into actual policy and fighting for them.
It is one thing to talk about all this stuff and pat each other on the back for chaffing at having to “endure” the US in Korea and demanding that something be done about it.
It is a very different thing, in Korean society, to actually put those thoughts into policy.