The agreement also allows for bilateral accumulation. Materials originating in South Korea can be considered to be from the EU when used in the manufacture of a product in the EU and vice versa. On the surface, the deal appears to be a benefit to the U.S. auto industry, but several experts say it won`t change the fact that South Koreans simply don`t want to buy American cars. “It hardly seems to have an impact,” says Simon Lester, a trade policy expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “I think [the Trump administration] had to explain a win, do something and sell it as a victory.” The FREE Trade Agreement BETWEEN the EU and South Korea encourages compliance with intellectual property rights by customs authorities and complements the minimum standards of the WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS). 41 David Lawder, “U.S., South Korea to Revise Trade Pact with Currency Side-Deal, Autos Concessions,” Reuters, March 28, 2018; and Congressional Research Service, “U.S.-South Korea (KORUS) FTA,” December 28, 2018. The free trade agreement also addresses non-tariff barriers, particularly in the automotive, pharmacy, medical device and electronics sectors. In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Senator John McCain of the Republican Party and Senator Barack Obama of the Democratic Party both expressed their commitment to an alliance between the United States and Korea, but the Democratic Party expressed concern about globalization and renewed its doubts about trade liberalization, which they said , could jeopardize the United States. Free trade agreement. His presidential candidate, Barack Obama, dismissed the KORUS free trade agreement during his election campaign as “bad” because he felt he would not do enough to increase car sales in the United States. His critics have taken over the auto unions.

[24] Obama said he would vote against the free trade agreement if he was on the ground in the U.S. Senate and would send him back to Korea if elected president. As in the United States, the free trade agreement is proving to be a very divisive issue in Korea. Opposition arguments tend to focus on perceived disparities in the agreement as well as public opinion. Supporters tend to focus on economic predictions. The TRADE agreement BETWEEN the EU and South Korea reduces the differences between the requirements for European and South Korean products by applying the same international standards. Overall, the international standards bodies involved in this sector include the korus renegotiation is a small adaptation to U.S.-Korea trade relations, not the global revolution that Trump and his trade advisers represent as one.