Republican lawmaker urges Obama to stop 'economic self-sabotage'

By Lee Chi-dong
WASHINGTON, June 12 (Yonhap) -- For the United States struggling to create jobs, delaying the ratification of a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea is tantamount to "economic self-sabotage," an American congressman said Sunday.
"Unfortunately, time is not on our side," Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) said in a commentary posted on the Web site of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.
"While Washington sits on the sidelines, our global competitors have thrown their hats in the ring, working to ensure increased access to South Korea's $1 trillion economy - the twelfth largest in the world - and reap the many benefits that this important market has to offer," he added.
South Korea's FTA with the European Union, the world's largest economic bloc, is slated to take effect in July.
Still, the FTA between South Korea and the U.S., signed in 2007, is pending.
U.S. President Barack Obama calls for lawmakers to agree to renew the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance (FAA) program, before he sends FTAs with South Korea, Colombia and Panama to Congress. FAA is designed to provide retraining and health care benefits for workers who have lost jobs due to import competition. Republicans dismiss the renewal of the FAA program as a waste of taxpayers' money amid state budget woes.
The South Korean government has already forwarded the FTA to the National Assembly but opposition lawmakers are not cooperative.
On Monday (Seoul time), lawmakers at the ruling Grand National Party said they would push for putting a motion on the FTA to vote in this month's extra session.
The U.S. congressman quoted reports by the nonpartisan U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) that the FTA with South Korea, or KORUS FTA, will create up to 280,000 jobs in the U.S.
He said that if ratified, it would also address the "unfair" bilateral trade system.
"The average Korean tariff for U.S. exporters is more than four times the average tariff that Korean products face in the U.S. market," he pointed out. "While South Korea has been and will continue to be one of America's strongest allies, we simply cannot continue this unjustifiable and unfair trade imbalance.
"In plain English: America would gain, not lose, from this trade agreement," he added. "KORUS' implementation is critical to our continued recovery, and any efforts toward its further delay should be seen as nothing less than economic self-sabotage."
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