Obama and the Korean Trade Agreement

   

Bungling The Korean Trade Agreement:  The Obama administration's efforts to renegotiate the agreement signed by Bush three years ago was a"disaster", says Phil Levy.

President Obama's failure to conclude the Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) is a disaster.  It reveals a stunning level of ineptitude and seriously undermines America's leadership in the global economy.  The implications extend far beyond selling Buicks in Busan.
. . . 
The well-established opposition just brings us to the stunning, perhaps unprecedented diplomatic incompetence just displayed by the White House.  The concerns and obstacles that impede a new KORUS agreement were fully apparent in June when Obama announced he would have an agreement in time for the Seoul G-20 meetings (now underway).  The announcement was remarkable at the time because so much of the U.S. president's statements on trade have been vague, aspirational, and timeless.  This was a promise to have a specific agreement concluded by a specific date.

And then the Obama administration didn't bother to start negotiating until September.  His attempt to retrieve the agreement in a last-minute personal talks with the Korean president failed.

All this is extraordinary.  Nearly always, presidents do not discuss these agreements specifically until they are concluded, until both sides have agreed to terms, and it is time to schedule a signing ceremony.  Does Obama not know this?  Did he somehow think that he could use his personal charm to get an agreement at the last minute?  That's hard to believe, but it is even harder for me to think of an alternate explanation.

(Here's more on the agreement from a supporter and from an opponent.)

- 12:40 PM, 16 November 2010   [link]

From Jim Miller on Politics