Korean, U.S. Lawmakers Call for More Revisions in FTA

Korean, U.S. Lawmakers Call for More Revisions in FTA
Fifty-six Korean and U.S. lawmakers have sent a letter to Cheong Wa Dae and the White House calling for a wholesale renegotiation of the bilateral free trade agreement. Seoul and Washington are trying to amend some provisions in the FTA ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Seoul next month. Thirty-five Korean members of the opposition Democratic Party, the Democratic Labor Party, the Creative Korea Party and the New Progressive Party, and 21 Democrat members of the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday sent the letter to Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Obama, according to media reports. "As you begin negotiations on several outstanding issues related to the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, we ask that you take this opportunity to make meaningful changes to the underlying text," they said. "We ask that the language in this agreement state more explicitly our countries' intention to maintain our high health, labor, and environmental standards." They also called for changes to "two particularly troubling provisions" -- "the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism and the negative list system of services."
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