Trade Agreement

Supporters of the proposed free-trade agreement between the United States and South Korea argue that we should approve the pact to improve our economy and to reward an ally in a troubled region for its strong security relationship with the U.S., and to solidify these strong security ties with a stronger trade relationship. Though there is no doubt South Korea is a close ally, we need to ensure that the agreement does not undermine U.S. security and economic interests by benefiting North Korea.

The top Republicans in the House of Representatives dined with President Obama on Wednesday, and the menu was dominated by talk on the economy, budget deficits, regulatory reform and trade. Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, of California, had lunch with the president, Vice President Joe Biden and Chief of Staff Bill Daley. There were no concrete agreements, but both sides said the session was agreeable.  “It was a very good lunch, and we were able to find enough common ground, I think, to assure the American people that we are willing to work on their behalf and willing to do it together,” Boehner, of Ohio,  told reporters after the luncheon.

On the eve of President Obama's expected push for American competitiveness in his State of the Union speech, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce kicked off a lobbying campaign in Los Angeles to push the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. Its most unusual feature: close cooperation between the business group and the White House. The trade deal, which would be the largest since NAFTA took effect in 1994, has provided the first notes of harmony between the Obama administration and the chamber, whose relationship has been strained almost since the moment Obama took office.

Song Myoung-geun is a hard-driving car dealer pushing Fords to South Korean buyers. He's so good at his job that last year he ranked third nationwide in personal sales for the U.S.-made vehicles. The bad news: He moved 72 cars in 12 months, a rate that surely would win no awards in the United States. By comparison, the top Hyundai salesman here sold 357 vehicles and the maker's third-place finisher sold 264. Song's plight shows the challenge of selling foreign-made automobiles with their added taxes in a nation determined to peddle homegrown brands.

The wide differences between Republicans and Democrats on economic policy don't leave much room for compromise over the next two years. But Tuesday's takeover of the House of Representatives by the GOP raises hopes for progress on at least one important initiative: It might help President Obama win approval of a U.S.- South Korea free-trade pact. President George W. Bush was a big proponent of the bilateral agreement with South Korea, which both governments signed in 2007, but he couldn't persuade Congress to approve it. Obama seems an unlikely champion, especially since he criticized the deal during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Even in the gloom of an international economic crisis, there is a bright spot of hope: free trade. Successful trade pacts with Panama and Colombia and a pending agreement with South Korea will serve to accelerate investment opportunities across a broad spectrum of business and industry, including agriculture, communications technology and natural resources — for Canada, that is. As for the United States, the best that can be said is that farmers,...

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates voiced support Thursday for a U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia, a treaty considered a critical reward for one of Washington's strongest allies in the region. The proposed agreement, first signed during the George W. Bush administration, has long been supported by U.S. businesses but opposed by labor and human rights groups because of Bogota's history of harsh intolerance of labor activism. Defense Department officials have favored the pact as a way to reward Colombia for its successful effort at beating back drug trafficking and the country's insurgency.

It has taken the loss of 4 million jobs in one year and a nationwide unemployment rate of 10% for President Obama to finally take a firm stand on the economic benefits of free trade. Oh, all right, he didn't exactly throw down a gauntlet in his State of the Union address and declare that expanding trade and increasing exports are essential to the country's economic recovery and the creation of jobs. It was more of a lukewarm, milquetoast, noncommittal sentence or two in which the president mentioned something about "strengthening" trade.

Robert Mosbacher, who served as U.S. Commerce secretary under his close friend, President George H.W. Bush, and helped lay the foundation for the North American Free Trade Agreement, has died. He was 82. Mosbacher died Sunday in Houston after a yearlong fight with pancreatic cancer, family spokesman Jim McGrath said. Mosbacher, a Texas oilman, was a powerful Republican fundraiser who served at the top echelons of Bush's presidential campaigns and most recently was a general campaign chairman for Sen. John McCain's 2008 GOP presidential race.

Peasant farmers in the Andean nations of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru often have a choice of growing two crops: flowers for export to the United States or coca for cocaine production. In accordance with U.S. anti-drug policy, Colombia and Peru have stepped up enforcement on coca cultivation, if to little avail. Bolivia doesn't even try: President Evo Morales, who is head of the largest coca growers union, defends it as part of Bolivia's cultural patrimony. But in Ecuador, roses have kept coca at bay. Ecuador's flower industry blossomed after President George H.W. Bush signed a regional trade agreement in 1991, which Congress extended and expanded as the Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act of 2002.