THE REVISED US-South Korea trade deal that President Obama announced at the end of last week was worth the delays and the extra haggling. Obama had originally wanted the agreement finalized for last month’s G-20 summit in Seoul, and he was roundly criticized when no deal was struck by then. But in the weeks since then, South Korean negotiators accepted reductions of that country’s auto industry tariffs — a change that transformed the original, unratified 2007 trade pact into a very beneficial deal for the United States. It deserves smooth congressional approval.
The revised accord is expected to generate 70,000 new American jobs, ring up $11 billion in additional US exports, and tilt the balance of trade with South Korea by at least $3.3 billion in America’s favor. The deal leaves in place an unfair South Korean restriction on beef imports, but that can be rectified in future negotiations.
As a sop to Korean cattle farmers and a population frightened by the 2003 scare of mad cow disease, Korean regulations prohibit the import of beef from animals older than 30 months. Despite this unfortunate restriction, which South Korea vows to continue, US beef exporters have been able to recapture the sales volume they had before the mad-cow setback.
Since it was announced, the new deal has been praised by the US pharmaceutical industry, AT&T, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the three big US automakers. The pact would significantly improve property-rights protection for US companies doing business in Korea. It would immediately cut in half Korean duties on US cars — from 8 to 4 percent — while preserving for eight years a 25 percent US tariff on trucks from Korea. This is indisputably a good deal, one that Democrats and Republicans should be eager to ratify.
