South Korea Approves Free Trade Pact With U.S.

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November 22, 2011

South Korea Approves Free Trade Pact With U.S.

An opposition lawmaker detonated a tear gas canister near the chairman's seat at Seoul's National Assembly on Tuesday.

Tear gas stung lawmakers and threw the chamber into chaos.

SEOUL — Members of President Lee Myung-bak’s governing party, coughing from tear gas sprayed by an opposition legislator, rammed a free-trade agreement between South Korea and the United States through Parliament on Tuesday, ratifying a deal that has sharpened a political divide between the government and the opposition and between big business and voters unhappy with deepening economic inequality.

Lawmakers of the governing Grand National Party caught the opposition by surprise by calling a snap plenary session. Opposition legislators rushed in but were too late to prevent their rivals from putting the bill to a vote.

In a desperate attempt, one opposition lawmaker detonated a tear gas canister, throwing the National Assembly chamber into chaos. A scuffle erupted, but members of the governing party outnumbered their foes and, while sneezing and wiping tears, passed the deal in a vote of 151 to 7. In the 299-seat National Assembly, 170 members showed up for the vote Tuesday, most of them governing party lawmakers. The opposition members either voted against the bill or abstained.

Glass doors were shattered as legislative aides from the opposition parties tried to barge in, and security guards formed a human barricade.

“The legislators were passing a bill which will make ordinary people shed bitter tears,” Kim Sun-dong, a member of the small opposition Korea Democratic Labor Party, told a crowd of supporters on Tuesday night, explaining why he had sprayed tear gas. “So I detonated tear gas so that they too shed tears, even if theirs were fake tears.”

Thousands of activists marched down an eight-lane boulevard in downtown Seoul late Tuesday, calling the parliamentary vote a “violation of democracy” and pledging to punish those who voted for the bill in next April’s general election. Police officers fired water cannons to disperse them.

The government had urged quick approval of the deal, first signed in 2007 but long unratified by either country, arguing that it would help the economy grow. It also said the deal would lessen South Korea’s dependence on trade with China and deepen its alliance with the United States at a time of growing military threats from North Korea.

The opposition argued that the deal would fatten the pockets of big export companies, which dominate the economy, while depriving farmers and small merchants of their livelihoods. Amid widespread distrust of big business and resentment of what is seen as increasing economic inequality, such fears have led thousands of farmers and labor activists to hold almost daily protest rallies outside the Parliament building. In occasional clashes, the police fired water cannons at protesters to stop them from entering Parliament.

“The government will actively pursue measures for farmers and smaller business owners to help improve their competitiveness,” said Choe Guem-nak, the president’s spokesman. “We will also make sure that the free trade agreement will rejuvenate the economy and above all, create jobs for young people.”

Mr. Lee’s rapport with President Barack Obama bore fruit last month when the U.S. Congress passed the free-trade deal by a wide margin despite underlying concerns about the effect it might have on U.S. manufacturing, notably the car industry. The deal was approved by Congress while Mr. Lee was visiting Washington.

“This was an inevitable action we had to take, because we could not make one step of progress in our talks with the opposition, which thought only about its partisan interest,” Kim Ki-hyun, a governing party spokesman, said of the hurried vote. “But we apologize to the people for failing to have a negotiated approval of the deal.”

“We apologize to the people for failing to stop this coup,” said Sohn Hak-kyu, head of the main opposition Democratic Party. “From now on, we will fight to have the deal nullified.”

Farmers’ groups across the country issued statements accusing the government of “giving up our economic sovereignty.”

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry said in a statement welcoming the bill’s approval that the deal would “pave an economic highway” to the United States and make South Korea a trading hub for Asia, Europe and North America.

South Korea, a major exporter of industrial goods like automobiles and consumer electronics, has aggressively sought free-trade deals and has several in effect, with countries including Chile, India, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union. South Korea hopes the deal with the United States will go into effect Jan. 1, said Cho Byung-jae, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry.

After Mr. Obama signed the U.S. side of the South Korean agreement into law, Mr. Lee’s government has felt the pressure to get it ratified here, too. But weeks of negotiations became bogged down in squabbling over technicalities few ordinary South Koreans could understand.

The governing and opposition camps both admitted that it had become politically impossible to reach a compromise, especially after the opposition rejected Mr. Lee’s offer last week that his government would renegotiate a key sticking point if the opposition first ratified the trade deal.

A violent clash was inevitable, given the parties’ penchant for resorting to physical confrontations to railroad measures through Parliament. The rival parties focused on how to use such a clash to create a favorable impression for themselves before parliamentary and presidential elections next year.

Government economists believe that the free-trade deal could increase trade between South Korea and the United States, tallied at $90 billion last year, by as much as a quarter.

The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that the deal will lift U.S. exports to South Korea as much by as $10.9 billion in its first year of full effect. The deal is the biggest U.S. trade pact since the North America Free Trade Agreement, which went into force in 1994.

The trade accord removes tariffs on almost two-thirds of U.S. farm exports and phases out duties on more than 95 percent of industrial goods within five years. It will help South Korea’s economy expand by 5.7 percent within a decade, according to government estimates. Automobile, electronics and chemical exporters will benefit the most, while the farming sector is expected to suffer a big loss in production.

The opposition wants better protection for farmers and the country’s nonmanufacturing industries. Kim Jin-pyo, floor leader of the Democratic Party, warned that the deal would “deepen the polarization of wealth.”

Both governments signed the deal in 2007, but lawmakers’ approval of it has been delayed by changes in governments in both countries and by U.S. demands that South Korea take steps to reduce an imbalance in auto trade. South Korea eventually compromised and addressed U.S. worries on cars through additional negotiations.

As Mr. Lee nears the last year of his five-year term, he faces declining popularity amid corruption scandals involving his former aides, concerns about deteriorating ties with North Korea and a widening wealth gap. But he is proud of the closer ties with the United States under his government — a relationship he wanted to reaffirm by having Parliament pass the trade bill.

He likes to cite surveys showing that a majority of South Koreans support the deal. But last month, a vocal critic of his policies, including the trade agreement, won the election for Seoul mayor. Young voters were frustrated over the lack of employment opportunities, although the country’s big businesses rake in huge profits through exports.

[김재균22]

한-미 자유 무역 협정(FTA) 비준동의안이 국회에서 동의 (?)했다는 기사가 오늘 아침 뉴욕 타임즈에 실렸습니다. 최루탄 애기도 언급했고요. 국회의원들이 흘린 눈물은 최루 가스로 인한 한 순간의 가짜의 눈물이지만 앞으로 우리 농민들 소상공인들이 흘리 진짜 피눈물 나는 눈물은 누구 보상 해줘야하는지... 국회의원들은 손수건으로 잠시 눈물을 비켜 갈 수 있지만 우리 농부들이 겪어야하는 고통은 손수건으로 비껴 갈수 있는 그러한 것은 아닌 것 같습니다. 아래는 미국 사람들은 위의 기사를 보고 어떤 견해를 나타냈는지 엮어 보았습니다.

[김재균22]

I understand the frustration at the American political discourse and admiration for the politician who threw a tear gas canister in a parliament, but you do realize that tear gas canisters are not items that can be just bought at a corner store in Korea, right? This politician's antics are akin to a congressman discharging his weapon on the floor of House to disrupt all proceedings not to his liking. There is/should be no place for violence in political discourse just as in personal civilized interaction.

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Well, we in the good ol' U.S of A should consider ourselvs fortunate- most of our legislators' transgressions are more of a benign sexual and/or corrupt nature, rather than such a grossly crude act as depicted here. Shame on you!

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I wish I owned stock in a tear gas company. It seems to be everywhere these days.

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Korean government spokesman: “We will also make sure that the free trade agreement will rejuvenate the economy and above all, create jobs for young people.”

Above all, they will not be young American people.

[김재균22]

The tear gas bit is laughable and a tragic, desperate attempt to address another desperate and immoral, but successful, attempt to circumvent the legislative process. The South Korean people should repudiate their government which is not acting in their best interests. Just like Americans should repudiate our government which is paralyzed by the intransigence of the Republican party.

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SK legislators using tear gas to get a vote passed???

Now THAT is dedication to the cause. lol!

I don't know why GM, Ford or Fiat..I mean Chrysler would worry about a free trade agreement. We bailed out two of them so they have no debt and all three of them make cars in Mexico where the labor is cheap. So what's their problem with this???

[김재균22]

Detonating a tear gas canister.............hmmmm worth to try it in the legislature of my country.

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I spent a number of months in Korea recently and Koreans spend their money in a fiercely nationalistic way. Unlike Americans who simply buy what is cheapest, regardless of how or by whom it was made, Koreans seek out Korean products and will purchase them regardless of price. This free trade deal, like many others, is a huge mistake. It will not increase market share of American made products, due to this economic nationalism, and will threaten many strategic American industries such as steel, and computing. Free trade is a good thing overall, but U.S. workers have been amongst its biggest los

[김재균22]

biggest losers.

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And why should Korea vote "no?' Like every nation in the world, they have a small economy into which the US can sell and the US has a huge economy into which they can sell. The people who benefit are the rich. The people who will lose are as usual the American workers who will lose their jobs when Korea undercuts American prices. There was time--1954--when 28% of the American economy was based on manufacturing. Now it is 9%. All those American who had good jobs making stuff are now working for Wl-Mart or Flipping hamburgers or living on unemployment.

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The rich who own US companies will drop American workers like cold pancakes and start manufacturing in Korea as they have done unrelentingly for decades every time a "free trade" benefit opens up. In the end the only way America will be able to compete is when American workers work for Chinese wages. The mantra "Free Trade benefits America' is a reminder of the old Hitler saying "Tell a lie big enough and often enough and people will believe it."

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Problem is that readers of the world affairs have to brace up for a drastically reduced size of the now majority ruling party of South Korea in April election. You see how the government party has struggled through a losing streak that includes a huge defeat in the recent Seoul mayoral by-election. I don't think this desperate parliamentary putsch has any significant plus to the already unpopular president who has several criminal convictions amassed through his checkered life.

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I'd rather call him and the daughter of the assassinated coup leader the star-crossed lovers of Seoul, despite the fact that they actually don't love one another. An erstwhile shoo-in presidential hopeful as the incumbent's probable successor along the party line, Ms. Park, in public polls, now trails a college professor who still shyly resists politicizing questions from the badgering press.

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The Old Guards in Seoul's political arena keep their fingers crossed that this FTA will somehow work its magic and expiate their falling ratings in the approaching popular tribunals. Now, we may as well wait and see what will come out of next year's elections for legislature and presidency of the nation.