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GUEST: Christine Ahn, Policy analyst with the Korea Policy Institute, coordinating the campaign with the Korean-Americans for Fair Trade

The US and South Korea are working feverishly on a free-trade deal before the end of this month. South Korea warned today that there would be no agreement if the US insisted on including rice in the deal. If a deal is made by March 31st, President Bush could send the free-trade agreement to Congress for a straight yes-no vote without amendments before his trade promotion authority runs out this summer. In addition to South Korea’s insistence on keeping rice out of the deal, negotiators in Seoul want goods manufactured at a joint industrial zone in North Korea to be included in the deal, a stance Washington has said it will not accept. South Korea is the seventh-largest trading partner of the United States and if a free trade agreement is hammered out, it would be the biggest deal for Washington since the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. While Americans are largely ignorant of of this impending deal, South Koreans are mobilized against it. Yesterday, thousands of people took to the streets of Seoul to denounce the proposed free trade agreement, culminating in a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy.

For more information, visit www.kpolicy.org, www.kaft.org, and www.oaklandinstitute.org.