KTU calls for an end to trade negotiations with the U.S.

Korean society is being drawn into a trade agreement whirlpool. Farmers, though they have to prepare for the spring, are farming on asphalt pavement again. Movie makers and artists are demonstrating on the street with candlelight.

Negotiations for a free trade agreement (FTA) between Korea and the United States were declared February 3, 2006.

The Korean government is deceiving people, claiming that through an FTA exports, investment, and the GDP will increase, and that we will develop an advanced economy. If an FTA truly promotes national interests as the government insists, it must be clear about what these interests are and how such an agreement can help to make people's lives better. Unfortunately, the government's assertions are muddled.

Tellingly, the government is surrendering unilaterally on main trade questions before it even starts negotiating. The U.S. demanded that Korea start importing American beef again, and to cut the quota for domestic films as conditions before negotiations were to begin. The government has since allowed U.S. beef imports, and announced that it will cut the screen quota by half.

Items to be negotiated include services, industrial and agricultural products, and investment. A concrete tariff agreement should be negotiated item by item, and no joint research has been conducted in advance. Nevertheless, we are told that the FTA will be completed according to the U.S. timeline. It is generous to call Korean negotiators under-prepared for the task.

In agriculture, which is expected to be especially damaged, the production of agro-livestock is estimated to decrease by two trillion won. If rice is included, food production will fall by a total of 8.8 trillion won. Korea’s total agricultural product is about 20 trillion won, which means either a 10 or 45 percent decrease, with a proportionate number of farmers expelled from their lands. Such a catastrophic loss in food production would be unprecedented in world economic history.

When we consider the results of the FTA recently completed between the U.S and Australia, an FTA between Korea and the United States will make all public services subject to private ownership, and give the U.S most-favoured nation status. The U.S. has been seeking to open the entire education market, as it considers education (beyond its own borders) a product and service trade item. The supporters of a Korea-U.S. FTA insist that opening the education market would improve Korea education. However, a flow of American capital into Korea would not be meant for the education of Koreans but for profitable returns on investment.

For a number of years now, Korean employers have preferred foreign universities and foreign diplomas. If U.S. education institutes enter Korea, fierce entrance competition should be expected. Further, American universities will use domestic curriculum in language courses to prepare students for universities in the U.S., so that studying abroad will increase, not decrease. In addition, broadening the education market would lead to the commercialization of university and adult education, increases in tuition and contributions, and the subordination of learning and research to the needs of investors.

If the education market is opened by an FTA, it is inevitable that Korean students will be educated by American teachers using American curriculum. Korea does not produce enough intellectual and cultural knowledge, and subordinated as academics are to English, the identity of education would be in serious danger. The creation of an unfettered market would entrust basic education, which teaches people identity and the basic principles of citizenship, to the U.S. It means giving up sovereignty in education.

Extreme income disparity caused by the increase in the number of contingent workers and rising levels of poverty, obviously leads to inequalities in consumption. This has led the upper class to consumption abroad, the major areas of which are education and medical care. The growth of private education would deny a basic human right, namely, equal and universal access to education—the right of every person to an education, regardless of differences in wealth. This, along with the destruction of public health and medical care, would increase the social divide, lessen most people's quality of life and threaten social safety.

We demand a stop to the fraudulent FTA negotiations initiated by the government and a small number of the moneyed class.

End negotiation on a FTA with the United States which threatens to destroy public education and deepen social inequality!

We demand an end to FTA negotiations!

2006.3.20
Korean Teachers Union (Park Soon-Hee)

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