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Moldy Rutabaga
Joined: 01 Jul 2003
Location: Ansan, Korea
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 Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 6:42 pm Post subject: FTA expected to fail, say experts |
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http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200612/kt2006122717370210160.htm
Ken:>
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Skepticism Grows Over FTA With US
By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
South Korea will be unable to sign a free trade agreement with the United States by the March deadline due to unfavorable political situations in the two countries, a private economic institute predicted Wednesday.
The Samsung Economic Research Institute, affiliated with the country�s largest conglomerate Samsung Group, said the FTA talks will face challenges especially from the United States since the Democrats took control of Congress in recent mid-term elections.
It predicted the Democrats are deemed more likely to oppose an FTA with South Korea because of objections from labor unions.
``South Korea and the U.S. are expected to miss the March deadline for an FTA signing,�� the institute said.
The institute also said a lack of consensus in South Korea on the FTA and the lame duck position of the Roh Moo-hyun administration will make it tougher to finalize the negotiations by the deadline. The presidential election here will take place next December.
Both sides are making efforts to wrap up the negotiations by March. The deadline is important since U.S. President George W. Bush�s ``fast-track�� authority expires on June 30. A 90-day review of a deal is needed for Congress to vote on it without amendments.
The two sides have held FTA talks since June. The fifth and latest round of negotiations was held in Montana, but they made little progress on pending issues such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals and agriculture.
As for North Korea's nuclear issue, the institute said tension on the Korean Peninsula is expected to linger into next year as the six-party talks, which resumed recently after a 13-month hiatus, will not make enough headway to put an end to Pyongyang�s nuclear ambitions.
``If the six-party talks collapse this time, it is likely to bring about toughened sanctions by the U.N. against the Stalinist regime, which will inevitably raise tension in this region,�� the institute said.
The institute also said the economy has been plagued by weak employment, low income growth and falling corporate profitability, despite solid economic growth and brisk exports.
The economic sentiments of many South Koreans worsened this year due to concerns over the local currency�s ascent, oil prices, the North Korean nuclear risk, property market unease and rising household debt, it said.
``On the surface, the Korean economy performed brilliantly in 2006, with around 5 percent economic growth, $300 billion in exports and a stock market index soaring to above 1,400,�� the think tank said. ``Under the surface, however, the economy performed poorly due to the lackluster job and income growth of households as well as falling profitability of local companies.�� |
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Bondrock
Joined: 08 Oct 2006
Location: ^_^
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| Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 7:39 pm Post subject: FTA |
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curious that the Korean media recently reported that much of the anti-american sentiment here was fueled by these splinter-political groups with direct ties to Kim Jong Il.
it is not in the interest of north korea to see the south getting closer to the US and A.
of course the FTA deal will not fail.
the media here will editorially react: "it was forced on Koreans by the powerful US".
end of story. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Reports a month ago or so said after the FTA with the US was finalized, there would be negotiations with China for an FTA. Has anyone heard what will/might happen with that? What are the chances of a Korea-China FTA if the Korea-US FTA fails? |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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| I am not a big promoter of free trade. Basically, the worker will get shafted whether in Korea or the U.S. unless prices go up in Korea and also wages. As far as China, workers cannot compete with their wages, and the corporate controlled government in Washington doesn't care about human rights except when bullying countries to do what they want. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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| um so then what do you propose instead? Just look at history to see free trade works. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| ...the corporate controlled government in Washington |
Adventurer: Wall Street does not control Washington. This is myth based on the Communist Manifesto, remember? "The executive of the modern state," Marx denounced, "is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie."
Since the late-nineteenth century, the United States abandoned laissez-faire economics -- and particularly under FDR through the Nixon Administrations, and then again during and after Clinton's presidency. Washington pursued "open doors" instead of European-style imperialism in what became what McCormick calls "informal empire" backed up by an increasingly assertive foreign policy.
This notwithstanding, Washington tried isolationism after the First World War. But that did not work out. Not for the United States. Not for Europe. Not for anyone else in the world, either. Just ask the British and the French who persistently complained about it and insisted Washington lead.
Since at least as early as the 1930s, critics in the United States have denounced the "open door" -- following Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. And bitterly so. And since 1945, critics in most of the rest of the world have joined them.
I have no problem with interpretations that conflict with my own. And the question whether the United States should look after its economic interests in foreign policy is worthy of debate. But you use the allegation -- and that is what it is -- so casually above that I want to point out to you that this issue is far from settled.
Anything worth explaining, Adventurer, is complex and multiple-variable. I think United States foreign policy is such a thing. Why must you reduce it to a simplistic, monocausal explanation?
| Adventurer wrote: |
| ...doesn't care about human rights except when bullying countries to do what they want. |
No. This is wrong on both counts.
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:47 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:28 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Gopher"]
| Adventurer wrote: |
| ...the corporate controlled government in Washington |
Adventurer: Wall Street does not control Washington. This is myth.
Since the late-nineteenth century, the United States abandoned laissez-faire economics -- and particularly under FDR through Nixon Administrations. Washington pursued "open doors" instead of European-style imperialism in what became an increasingly assertive foreign policy as well.
[Just because you say it is doesn't make it so, either. Let us make it clear when it comes to the corporations - they do have an extreme amount of power when compared to the larger public. The majority of Americans, for example, according to polls want some kind of universal health care. However, they do not have it. If we applied strict democracy, it would be a no brainer, and they would have it. In Canada, most Canadians are opposed to GMO foods, but the Canadian government ignores them. GMO benefits companies like Monsanto.
Environmental policy in the U.S. often is geared to the benefits of corporate friends of politicians, and this was clear with the way this administration handled the environment. The democrats are slightly better when it comes to the environment. Unions, as I said before, get little room to voice their concerns when compared to the corporations in the media. The evidence is overwhelmingly against the idea that corporations do not disproportionately have too much power vis-a-vis the public.
As far as free trade, I am not opposed to it if it is fair. If it involves loose environmental standards and labour standards, I am not interested in it. A free trade agreement with Korea will have its pluses and minuses on both sides. It may be beneficial in many ways for both, but we must becareful that there are similar environmental standards and somewhat of a harmonization of laws regarding labour, contracts etc... |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:32 am Post subject: |
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Completely OT, but that's a great avatar, G, a great one. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 12:51 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Just because you say it is doesn't make it so, either... |
Adventurer: No, it does not. But, yes, I say it is so anyway. I am a doctoral candidate in American diplomatic history and intimately familiar with the literature -- and much further back than Williams's "Wisconsin School" which you seem caught up in, and without the sophistication that Williams and his students applied to the problem. The only ones making the reductionist and simplistic "Yankee Imperialism" case you assert above are Hollywood, the far left, and people like Hugo Chavez. Hollywood might be excused for catering to a particular demographic group's worldview for profit. As far as the other two go...
In any case, I have voiced my objection to what I explained appears to be your very casual use and apparent internalization of someone else's political agenda in your analysis. I do not by any means discount corporate influence and some degree of corruption (and many other influences) in Washington. I merely point out that corporate influences are rarely, if ever, decisive in policymaking. While you allege that the system is corrupt, then, I clarify that while there is corruption in the system, the system continues to function as designed.
The Marxist-Leninist, "anti-imperialist" position you echo here almost always relies on purely circumstantial evidence (rhetorical questions like "who benefitted?" for example). Yet this and other weaknesses never seem to give pause to any of those who so confidently tell us that their angry Marxian analysis represents the Truth.
You may take or leave what I say here as you choose, of course.
Last edited by Gopher on Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:28 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 1:21 am Post subject: |
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| Adventurer wrote: |
| Let us make it clear when it comes to the corporations - they do have an extreme amount of power when compared to the larger public. The majority of Americans, for example, according to polls want... |
I wanted to address this point separately, Adventurer.
We do have an indirect and not a direct democracy. And just because Washington does not fall all over itself to give the people what they want as they want it, this does not conclusively prove that therefore corporations control Washington.
Critics who assault the United States for instigating the coup that ousted Jacobo Arbenz, for example, bitterly decry that Washington/CIA did this at the behest of United Fruit Company. The most current example of this analysis is Hollywood's The Good Shepherd. Just saw it. Very well. I have indeed seen evidence that United Fruit executives weilded much influence over policymaking, which they in fact partly corrupted. And, indeed, United Fruit wanted the government to overthrow and replace Arbenz and that is exactly what the government did -- as we all know.
How far, exactly, did this influence reach, though? And did UFCO executives simply pick up phones and walk into offices and thus mobilize the government?
Did you know that Truman and Acheson shut down an earlier verison -- Somoza and Trujillo's, and Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru's version -- of the operation in 1952? "State disapproves of the entire deal," Undersecretary of State Bruce told Agency executives in an October 1952 meeting. And Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Miller and his deputy Mann lambasted CIA for collaborating with United Fruit.
Then, later, Eisenhower, fearing Guatemala would become the next Czechoslovakia (that is what he told his press secretary, who recorded it verbatim in his diary), reinitiated the operation. But this time, according to the dox that I have read, CIA excluded United Fruit entirely from all phases of it -- "need to know."
And on top of that, as the operation unfolded, the Department of Justice prosecuted and broke up the United Fruit Company on antitrust grounds. The same summer that Arbenz resigned, United Fruit executives found themselves shut out of government offices. The only person who talked to them was a mid-level CIA executive, J.C. King. And according to King's memo, he told them that CIA could not help them. They complained that the U.S. government treated them as if they were expendable. Indeed, the United Fruit Company began attacking Justice in the press and larger media a la McCarthy -- that is, they produced multiple hostile editorials and films like Why the Kremlin Hates Bananas to allege that Moscow had penetrated the Justice Department.
But none of this stopped their demise.
So, I ask you: who benefitted from this again? The problem with the "Yankee Imperialism" or corporate-interests-control-America thesis is that it breaks down entirely when we get into the trenches and start looking at individual historical events in any detail...
Again, policymakers and officials generally act in the national interest, and not on behalf or narrower, private ones -- or "the whole bourgeoisie." It may be clear that since the late nineteenth century Washington has included "economic interests" and "open doors" in its definition of "the national interest." But this is not the same thing at all as saying that Wall Street mans the helm of the ship of state either. And, in any case, in this instance, anticommunism -- real or overstated it does not matter, as we are discussing how it appeared to the historical actors on the ground, at the time, and not how we know it to have been in hindsight -- decisively shaped U.S. foreign policy.
So I think you could make more nuanced distinctions in the position you have repeated here. Even if those who you probably heard it from originally stubbornly refuse to do so.
Oppose FTA if you like, then. But please do not mischaracterize U.S. foreign policy formulation and motives... |
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scarneck
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 3:42 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher for President!! |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 5:57 am Post subject: |
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The FTA will fail, and for the ROK this is a terrible failure.
Adventurer, if the corps were running the trade show in America, don't you think that the trade agreements in place now would reflect this? The USA has a long history of using trade for ideological reasons. Look in the USA crappy Hyundai and Kia cars are everywhere, and in Korea, crappy Fords and such are hard to find. Korea exports oodles of finished goods and tariffs the hell out of foreign competition. This is wildly unfair for the all-powerful yank firms. The USA tolerates this as it helps keep Korea in the Yank camp. There are many, many such examples of this. It is global trade 101. The chomsky/znet line that firms dictate trade policy doesn't hold much water.
Anyhow, you can't expect poor nations to have the same levels of regulatons as do rich ones, and it will be damn hard for them to grow without isi development. |
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