Obama wants progress on SKorea free trade-official
Reuters
Obama wants progress on SKorea free trade-official
2 April 2009
* Progress on pact will "take time," U.S. official says
* EU, South Korea talks also stumble over auto trade (Adds background, quotes)
LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday problems remain on a stalled free trade deal between the two countries but that he wants to make progress, a U.S. official said.
"President Obama said that he understood there were difficulties on both sides on moving forward, but he said that he does want to make progress and staff should discuss how to move forward," the official said after the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G20 economic crisis summit in London.
Obama also invited Lee to visit Washington for talks in mid-June, the official said.
During last year’s presidential campaign, Obama said he could not support the free trade agreement unless it was renegotiated to provide more beneficial provisions for U.S. automakers.
Many U.S. lawmakers complain the current provisions fail to knock down non-tariff barriers that keep U.S. cars out of South Korea, while removing the few remaining tariffs the United States still has on South Korean cars and trucks.
With U.S. automakers now struggling to survive even with massive government assistance, the political climate for passing the agreement has become even more difficult.
Meanwhile, talks on a free trade deal between South Korea and the European Union reached an impasse in London on Thursday because of concern EU automakers have about opening the European market to more South Korean cars.
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, at his confirmation hearing in March, said Washington was prepared to walk away from its deal with South Korea if Seoul does not agree to renegotiate it.
The U.S. official, asked by reporters on Thursday if Obama had any schedule in mind for submitting the pact to Congress for approval, said: "There was not talk of a schedule (in the talks with Lee), simply an acknowledgment that this was going to take time."
In a March 26 letter to Obama, top Democrats on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee said the deal should be renegotiated along the lines of a proposal that a bipartisan group of lawmakers made in 2007.
That plan would phase out the 2.5 percent U.S. tariff on South Korean cars over 15 years, instead of immediately under the deal as it now stands.
But as U.S. autos exports to South Korea exceeded certain thresholds, South Korean automakers could receive additional duty-free access to the United States.
The administration of former President George W. Bush rejected that proposal as "managed trade." (Reporting by Matt Spetalnick in London and Doug Palmer in Washington; Editing by Xavier Briand)
