House minority leader John Boehner (R-OH) Tuesday called on Congress to immediately approve the pending free trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia, hoping they will help create jobs in the U.S. amid the worst recession in decades.
"These agreements would level the playing field for American workers, farmers, and businesses and pave the way for creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs here at home," Boehner told a gathering in Cleveland, Ohio, according to a transcript released by his office.
Boehner also called for the firing of the Obama administration's economic team, citing the chronic near two-digit unemployment rate and slow economic recovery.
The remarks by the minority leader, expected to become the House speaker if the Republican Party wins the mid-term elections in November, come after President Barack Obama ordered U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk in June to complete talks with South Korea over autos and beef before he flies to Seoul for a G-20 economic summit meeting in November. Obama intends to present the
deal to Congress early next year.
Lopsided auto trade and restricted shipments of beef have served as major hurdles to the ratification of the Korea FTA, signed in 2007 under the Bush administration.
Kirk said early this month that he will sideline other issues than auto and beef to meet Obama's deadline, despite calls by a number of U.S. industries to revisit clauses on textiles, financial services, investment, labor provisions and even refrigerators.
"We are focusing principally on autos and beef," Kirk said. "We'll listen to others. But I think it's improbable to believe that we're going to reopen and look at every aspect of disagreement at this late date."
The top U.S. trade official said recently that ratification of the trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Colombia will be a key to the Obama
administration's ambitious plans to double exports within five years, noting the Korea FTA's ratification "could add $10 billion to our GDP, and more critically, it could support up to 70,000 jobs."
Boehner called for immediate congressional action.
"We've also recently heard a lot of talk in Washington about the manufacturing sector, but no action," he said. "Congress has yet to act on
pending free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Passing these free-trade agreements was a critical plank of the jobs plan
that House Republican Whip Eric Cantor and I presented to President Obama last December. Congress should approve these free trade agreements immediately."Last month, Kirk had a phone call with South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon.
"We came up with a broad construct for how we think we ought to move going forward," he said. "We will continue to work on this so that we can
meet the president's deadline, to see if we can't have an agreement in place by the time he visits Korea in November."
Kim Jong-hoon said last month that negotiations will begin in late September. He said Seoul is ready to address any problems to be raised by the U.S. on non-tariff barriers or unfair trade practices, but added, "It is a wrong approach if the U.S. calls for a balance in the trade of certain products."
The United Auto Workers (UAW) has called on Congress to delay implementation of the tariff reductions on autos and auto parts "until the
domestic auto industry has fully recovered," and demanded it "be tied to measurable results in reducing the automotive trade deficit."
The Korea FTA calls for the elimination of the 2.5 percent tariff on most autos and auto parts and a phase-out of the 25-percent tariff on light
trucks.
The U.S. exported 5,878 autos to South Korea last year. South Korean auto shipments to the U.S. totaled 476,833 last year, according to the UAW.
Beef is not an issue covered by the Korea FTA, but Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and some other politicians have threatened not to move for the approval of the Korea FTA unless South Korea allows shipments of beef from cattle of all ages. Montana is said to be the biggest source of beef from older cattle.
The U.S. beef industry has called for a cautious approach, fearing a possible backlash in the Korean market, where U.S. beef shipments have grown rapidly since South Korea resumed imports in 2008 after a five-year hiatus.
U.S. beef exports to South Korea reached US$216 million last year, making South Korea the fourth-largest importer of U.S. beef products.
Under Secretary of Agriculture Jim Miller said this month that the U.S. has not yet made a decision on whether wider access to the Korean beef market should be a precondition for the ratification of the Korea FTA.