Historic Trade Agreement with South Korea

The USTR Ron Kirk on December 3, 2010 clinched a historic trade deal (in a sense, this deal is more of a tweak and refinement to the existing trade agreement already signed by the Bush administration, but not ratified) with South Korea that would have a potential to adversely impact Japan, hamstrung in discussions in trade talks. If Washington-Seoul trade pact is ratified by both nations' legislatures, the measure would:

* Lift tariffs on car imports from South Korea, currently at an average of 2.5%, in the five years after the ratification of the pact.

* Eliminate tariff on all other merchandise tariffs in the same time frame. Current tariff on such imports from South Korea is at 3.2%.

* Eliminate farm product tariffs on the imports from USA from the current average level of 54%, a major market penetration opportunity for USA 's beef, farm and poultry products.

Now, pressure shifts to Tokyo to engage in the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade liberalization talks.

Source: The Dallas Morning News (December 6, 2010 edition)

Congress on October 12, 2011 ratified the free-trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.