South Korea said yesterday it had reached a deal to open its market wider to US beef imports, potentially removing a major trade irritant just one day before a summit between the two countries.
Efforts to pass a separate wide-ranging free trade agreement (FTA) will top the summit agenda.
But US legislators have warned they will not approve the trade pact until the beef dispute, which costs US farmers hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is settled.
“Following overnight consultations that lasted into early Friday, the two sides are working on the wording of an agreement,” Seoul’s agriculture ministry said.
Details would be released later but a spokesman indicated that Seoul has relaxed its restrictions on what kind of beef could be imported.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea (Amcham) said the deal would allow imports of all cuts of beef from cattle of all ages.
South Korea was once the third largest market for US beef, with imports worth US$850 million a year before Seoul banned imports in 2003 because of fears of mad cow disease.
It eased the ban in 2006 but allows only meat from cattle aged 30 months or less and excludes bones and other materials deemed to carry a risk of spreading the disease.
STOP AND GO
Seoul has suspended imports several times after discovering banned material in shipments. It effectively halted all imports last October after backbones were discovered in a shipment.
Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, said in Washington the FTA would top the agenda when South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and US President George W. Bush meet formally for their Camp David summit today.
“Now that this major beef obstacle has been overcome, Amcham is also cautiously optimistic that the US Congress will no longer have a reason to oppose consideration of this historically and commercially significant agreement,” the chamber said in a statement.
Both Lee and Bush are pushing for the trade pact to be ratified by their respective legislatures.
The FTA will be “a mutually beneficial deal” that would also reinforce the two countries’ military alliance, Lee said on Thursday in Washington.
But the pact faces strong opposition in US Congress over the beef issue and claims it does too little to free up US auto exports.
Cattle growers denounced the move.
“We cannot accept any deals which are dangerous to our people. US beef products, which are still seen as unsafe, should not become the subject of political bargaining,” said Kim Yong-won of the Korea Beef Association.
He said the group would continue its campaign against US beef.
THE PRICE OF HEALTH
A survey in January showed that 85 percent of South Korean housewives consider US beef unsafe.
However, most of them said they would still consider buying it if it were roughly 10 percent cheaper than beef from Australia — the No. 1 beef exporter to South Korea last year.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary