Done deal
Predictably enough, considering that it had to be agreed for George Bush’s convenience by April Fool’s Day, the Korea-US Free Trade Area Agreement was, er… agreed by April 1 in the face of popular and even mainstream political opposition. Of course it could still be stymied at the ratification stage, but somehow that seems unlikely.
I wonder if this agreement will have the same miraculous effects that NAFTA achieved for the Mexican economy? The prognosis can’t be great considering that the US is desperate to find any way it can to combat China’s competitive advantage and increasing economic influence while South Korea’s economy seems to be suffering a prolonged crisis of accumulation that the FT last week misidentified in its usual style as a largely political and ‘cultural’ problem.
Assuming for a second that Roh isn’t just another lackey (big assumption, I know), what was his motivation? Was he informed that an FTA was inevitable, and it was decided that an agreement under his watch would be better than one signed under a Hannara president?
Comment by trachys — April 3, 2007 @ 6:52 am
This puzzles me a bit too. I asked Jamie pretty much the same question a while back, and now of course, I can’t remember what his answer was… goddamnit.
My own feeling is that we need to remember how narrowminded the ruling classes of the world are - their strategic vision doesn’t really move beyond the latest current fashionable thinking about how capitalism should be run, which of course means neoliberalism at the moment. There are people like Chang Ha-joon who try to persuade them otherwise and must get the ear of policymakers now and then, but the overwhelming ‘common sense’ out there in the land of ruling class ‘thought’ (ie think tanks, ministries, civil services, university economics and business depts) is undoubtedly neoliberal. So I guess once you accept that there’s no alternative to neoliberalism, the best option is to get in there early.
Comment by kotaji — April 3, 2007 @ 12:05 pm