Seoul power

The U.S. has helped to keep South Korea free from North Korean aggression all these years. Is it too much to ask for better trade terms for U.S. agricultural products? Of course not, but that fact won't make it any easier. South Korea's rice, beef and fruit producers are politically powerful and have fiercely resisted concessions that would remove stifling tariffs.

I talked to several U.S. produce leaders who are heading to South Korea late this week to help advise the U.S. negotiating team as they try to wrap up the U.S.-South Korea free trade pact by late this month. At least three industry leaders making the trek to South Korea were Kathleen Nave, president of the California Table Grape Commission, Fresno, Calif., Mike Wootton, vice president of corporate relations for Sunkist Growers, Inc., Sherman Oaks, Calif. and Mark Powers, vice president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, Yakima, Wash.
Nave said California grapes face a 45% tariff in South Korea, the highest faced by California grapes anywhere.
“We want to keep the ambition level high,” Powers told me March 14.
Pressure to finish the talks is mounting as the president’s trade promotion authority will run out by July.

TK: Wootton makes a good point in saying that U.S. produce leaders have largely supported free trade deals that were tilted heavily to producers in Central America, Australia, Chile, Jordan and Morocco in recent years. It is time for the U.S. to deliver a trade pact that gives U.S. fruit and vegetable exporters substantially improved access to this sizable market.