South Korea and the United States have agreed to take additional steps to better ensure safety of American beef. On Tuesday, the two sides reached a new agreement on beef import conditions that will enable Seoul to immediately ban U.S. beef imports if mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is confirmed in American cattle.
The agreement came 32 days after Korea struck a deal with the U.S. to completely open its market to American beef regardless of cattle age. However, the Seoul government has failed to implement the deal as scheduled due to public protests over the market opening and growing fears about mad cow disease. It is fortunate that officials of the two countries have decided to take new steps toward beef safety.
There is no doubt that the measure is designed to calm down mounting criticism of the beef deal or alleviate exaggerated fears about mad cow disease from U.S. beef. The original April 18 beef trade deal allows South Korea to ban U.S. beef imports only if the World Organization for Animal Health downgrades the U.S. status in terms of the disease following its outbreak.
In this regard, protestors have accused the government of giving up its sovereign quarantine rights because the nation cannot ban American beef imports unless the international organization classifies the U.S. as a country that carries the risk of BSE. The U.S. is currently classified as a BSE risk-controlled country. Now with the latest agreement, South Korea will be able to properly exercise the quarantine rights.
In addition, the two sides have agreed to include cattle parts such as cervical, vertebral, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae of cattle older than 30 months in the list of specified risk materials (SRM) which are banned from imports into South Korea. The April deal did not ban those parts although the Seoul government asserts that they are removed at U.S. meat processing plants.
The new agreement was contained in a letter exchanged between South Korea Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab. The two countries have decided to recognize each other's quarantine sovereignty in accordance with Article 20 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) among World Trade Organization (WTO) members.
However, it remains to be seen whether the agreement will help the government ease persistent public fear about mad cow disease and avoid criticism that it has made too many concessions to the U.S. Protestors and opposition lawmakers have called for the nullification of the beef deal. Opposition parties, including the United Democratic Party (UDP), have continued to demand the renegotiations of the deal, calling the latest agreement a stopgap measure.
In a meeting with President Lee Myung-bak at Cheong Wa Dae Tuesday morning, UDP leader Sohn Hak-kyu refused to accept the new agreement, calling for a ban on U.S. cattle older than 30 months. He turned down Lee's request for cooperation to pass the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) at the National Assembly. In this situation, President Lee and his policymakers face a difficult task of persuading the people and opposition lawmakers to accept the additional agreement on U.S. beef safety.