NPPC: US-South Korea FTA Remains Good Deal

US - Pork producers took one for the proverbial team as the United States and South Korea on Friday, 3 December, resolved an issue with autos through a compromise on pork to finalise a free trade agreement between the countries.

8 December 2010

4 minute read

North America

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"We’ve worked particularly hard the past several years to get a good deal for US pork in the FTA with South Korea. We had that but to get a final agreement, we needed to give a little, we needed to take one for the team. This is still a good deal for us."

Sam Carney, NPPC President

The deal is not everything the National Pork Producers Council wanted, but it is close enough, according to NPPC President Sam Carney.

“We’ve worked particularly hard the past several years to get a good deal for US pork in the FTA with South Korea,” said Mr Carney. “We had that but to get a final agreement, we needed to give a little, we needed to take one for the team. This is still a good deal for us.”

At NPPC’s insistence, the United States had negotiated in the agreement that was signedon 30 June 2007, a zero tariff rate on most pork products going into South Korea effective 1 January 2014, the same date Chile’s pork and 30 months before the European Union’s goes to a zero duty. Chile’s FTA with South Korea was implemented in 2004; the EU’s agreement will be in force 1 July 2011.

The US-South Korea FTA had been held up mostly because of issues related to trade in beef and automobiles. The logjam was broken when US pork producers agreed to move back the effective date on the zero tariff rate on some cuts of pork to 1 January 2016.

“With the date for a zero tariff on pork moved back, we likely will lose some market share in the South Korean market to Chile,” Mr Carney said. “But as the lowest-cost producer of pork in the world, we’ll hold our own. We still will go to zero six months prior to the EU.”

The FTA, which still must be approved by the US Congress as well as the South Korean National Assembly, would be one of the most lucrative for the US pork industry, according to NPPC, which has championed the pact for more than three years now.

According to Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes, by the end of the FTA’s 10-year phase-in period, total US pork exports to South Korea will be almost 600,000 metric tons. That represents nearly twice the current US export level to Japan - now the top value market for the U.S pork industry. The FTA will lift live hog prices by a staggering $10 per animal and will generate an additional $687 million in US pork exports. South Korea alone will absorb 5 per cent of total US pork production, and the FTA will create more than 9,000 new direct jobs in the US pork industry.

The US-South Korea FTA is one of three trade deals that are pending approval by Congress. Agreements with Colombia and Panama also have been awaiting action for more than three years.