By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
South Korea and the United States began their two-day ``additional talks’’ in Seoul Thursday to finalize the bilateral free trade deal, while focusing on labor and environment issues Washington wants to reflect in the pact.
Officials from the two sides held hours of talks on the first day to give final touches to the free trade agreement (FTA) both governments hope to formally sign on May 30 before asking for approval from their respective legislative bodies.
The South Korean delegation, led by Ambassador Kim Jong-hoon, largely listened to the U.S. delegates, headed by Assistant Trade Representative Wendy Cutler, to check what the Americans want through the renegotiation.
Kim said before the talks that the South Korean government would decide to what extent it would accept the proposed revisions after being briefed by his U.S. counterpart in the first session and make its own demands in return from the U.S.
Seoul and Washington reached a tentative agreement in early April after 10 months of intensive negotiations for a free trade agreement. But last week the U.S. demanded that some parts of the deal be renegotiated so its new trade policy guidelines could be reflected in the final deal.
Washington asked for talks in such areas as pharmaceuticals, government procurement, port safety and investment as well as labor and environment, according to the South Korean negotiators.
Kim stressed that the balance of interest reached in the tentative deal should be left ``unscratched’’ even after the renegotiation. Upon arrival in Seoul on Wednesday, Cutler also said the talks would not tip the balance achieved in the previous negotiations.
But government officials as well as experts here did not rule out the possibility of the Americans coming up with a more aggressive stance, raising other issues such as automobiles and beef imports.
For example, Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, warned in a lecture in Seoul earlier in the day that the U.S. administration would not take steps to ratify the FTA without South Korea’s full resumption of U.S. beef imports.
While the beef issue is not an official part of the free trade deal, it has been one of the major sticking points throughout the tough negotiations between the two nations.
South Korea, once the world’s third-largest buyer of U.S. beef, resumed imports of only boneless meat after a three-year ban over mad cow disease concerns. But officials say the country would have to resume imports of all U.S. beef products, even those with bones, from September.
``It’s clear from the American political debate,’’ Schott said. ``If the beef issue isn’t fully resolved, the U.S. administration will not submit implementing legislation for the KORUS FTA to Congress.’’
He, however, ruled out the possibility that the U.S. would ask South Korea to revise terms related to merchandise trade, particularly provisions on automobiles, which have been criticized by some Congress members as giving a one-sided advantage to South Korean automakers.
``I think it’s certain that the automobile issue will be tabled again during this week’s talks,’’ said Lee Hae-young, professor of international relations at Hanshin University in Seoul, one of the leading figures in the anti-FTA movement.