WASHINGTON – While Kia imported its millionth vehicle from South Korea to the Port of Tacoma in August, Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland wants to see more American cars exported to Seoul, the city where she was born in 1962.
“If you walk around Seoul, you don’t see very many cars that aren’t Hyundai or Kia, so there’s an opportunity for us,” she said. “If we can get access to the automobile market in Korea, it means a lot of American jobs.”
Strickland wants Congress to pass the long-stalled trade pact between the United States and South Korea. In her region, it’s an easy call: “Washington is the most trade-dependent state in America, and we are a port city.”
She may soon get her wish. After languishing for four years, the proposed agreement could be headed for a showdown vote in Congress in the next few weeks – and backers hope it happens before South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visits the White House for an official state dinner Oct. 13.
President Barack Obama formally sent the pact to Congress on Monday, along with proposed trade agreements with Colombia and Panama. He called the Korean free-trade agreement “a landmark agreement.”
“The agreement levels the playing field for U.S. businesses, workers, farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, investors, and service providers by offering them unprecedented access to Korea’s nearly $1 trillion economy,” Obama said.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the trade deals would be “a top priority for the House” and would be considered quickly.
“Today we have overcome a crucial hurdle to helping put Americans back to work,” he said.
If the deal is approved, Washington state – where one of every three jobs is linked to international trade – will start sending a lot more of its products to South Korea, including sweet cherries, pears, apples, potatoes, wine and airplanes.
Despite opposition from labor unions, the agreement has strong backing from the state’s congressional delegation. And with South Korea already ranking as Washington’s fourth-largest trading partner, proponents say the deal could be a real boon for all of the Pacific Northwest.
“I actually think that Washington, of all the states in the country, stands to benefit the most,” said Eric Schinfeld, president of the Washington Council on International Trade, a group that lobbies Congress on behalf of businesses in the state.
Under the agreement, South Korea also would immediately eliminate its 24 percent tariff on sweet cherries, and its 45 percent tariff on most apples would be phased out over 10 years. Washington is among the nation’s largest producer of both cherries and apples.
Scrapping the tariff on cherries would make them about $1 a pound cheaper for South Koreans and would result in more sales, said Mark Powers, vice president of the Northwest Horticultural Council in Yakima.
“That’s the hope, and that’s the expectation,” he said, adding that sales have been rising in South Korea even with the tariffs. “It’s an awesome market. It’s growing rapidly. They really love the cherries that we’re selling.”
Representatives of many labor and environmental groups, including the Washington Fair Trade Coalition, have consistently opposed the pact, arguing that it would lead to more jobs going overseas. They also object to working conditions in South Korea, saying there have been repeated challenges to unionizing activities.
Noting that the administration of former President George W. Bush negotiated the South Korean trade pact, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said at a news conference recently that “old Bush-era deals are not the answer.” He called for a “new approach” to international trade, “not the same broken deals that send jobs offshore and benefit multinationals but not working people.”
Schinfeld, who was on Capitol Hill a week ago to meet with members of the state’s congressional delegation, said that three pending trade pacts – with South Korea, Panama and Colombia – are “definitely Number One” on the list of the trade council’s issues.
“We’re very optimistic,” he said. “It’s hard with this Congress. Even the most rational things sometimes have gotten caught up in politics. We’ve been hopeful now for a while on these free-trade agreements, but certainly we seem to be in the end game.”
Obama, who has long touted the benefits of a deal with South Korea, called on Congress to approve the pact when he announced his $447 billion jobs plan in September.
“If Americans can buy Kias and Hyundais, I want to see folks in South Korea driving Fords and Chevys and Chryslers,” he said.
Strickland said she backs Obama’s plan to try to double all U.S. exports by 2015.
“It acknowledges that 90 percent of the world’s consumers do not live in America,” Strickland said. “And we have to do a better job of coming up with trade agreements that allow us better access to different markets, especially with South Korea. Over 20 million people live in Seoul alone, and that society is becoming more affluent by the day. And there’s just a big opportunity to really develop ties with that market.”
She recalled how one city resident made the case for more international trade at the Port of Tacoma while testifying before the Tacoma City Council on a shoreline issue last Tuesday night.
“He said he watches all these containers go in and out – and they come in full, but they don’t go out with the same numbers,” Strickland said. “And inadvertently, he made the point that we’re not exporting enough in America, especially here in Tacoma.”
Congressional leaders have been meeting with the White House in an attempt to finalize details on a vote. And Obama is expected to discuss the agreement with the South Korean president, who visited Washington state just last week, when he arrives in Washington, D.C., later this month.
Many members of Congress hope that Obama will have signed the agreement by then.
“If it’s gonna happen, frankly, it better happen in the next couple weeks,” the Northwest Horticultural Council’s Powers said. “Otherwise, the window closes, and it could be another couple years before the stars align and the politicians do what they need to do.”
And passing the deal before the South Korean president arrives in Washington, D.C., “would be a tremendous reaffirmation of our alliance with that key country,” Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said at a hearing on trade issues a week ago.
Strickland had an opportunity to promote trade when she returned to South Korea in March as part of a 10-day Asian tour, visiting her native country for the first time since she left as a year-old toddler. She met with the Korean International Trade Association, “trying to get Tacoma on their radar.”
She said that while there’s always a fear that more manufacturing jobs will disappear from America, “in this case there’s an opportunity to increase manufacturing jobs, because now we can sell American-made products in the South Korean market.”
“We’ve finally come to the realization that going into other markets does not harm us; it actually helps us,” she said.
And after all, she said, the U.S. has much to offer the world.
“I think one of the things that we kind of forget in America is that pop culture and the things that say ‘Made In America’ are very appealing to a lot of people around the world,” Strickland said. “So why would we deny our opportunity to share that?”
Rob Hotakainen: 202-383-0009 rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.