South Korea\'s GDP Was Estimated

South Korea's GDP was estimated at $1.335 trillion. Its exports totaled $433.5 billion, making it the 12th largest exporter in the world. Its imports totaled $427.4 billion, making it the world's 10th largest importer. Today, South Korea provides the United States with one of America's largest markets for agricultural products.

In 2006, the United States was Korea's third-largest trading partner, second-largest export market, third-largest source of imports, and its second-largest supplier of foreign direct investment.

However, South Korea is often accused of protectionism by the U.S. One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations over the U.S.-South Korean Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) was the degree to which Korea's regulation of U.S. beef was due to actual "unsanitary" U.S. practices. Korea was accused of standing against the spirit of trade liberalization embodied by free trade agreements (FTA) s.

Problem: The U.S. versus South Korea on the issue of beef imports

The recently proposed free trade agreement (FTA) between the U.S. And South Korea covers a wide range of subjects, including the divisive issue of beef imports. The issue of beef is unique, because the debates over the product do not merely concern questions of free trade vs. protectionism. There is also the issue of product safety. The Koreans allege that the safety of U.S. beef is in doubt. U.S. has criticized the Koreans for using concerns safety as a mask for the real issue, the desire to keep U.S. agricultural products out of Korea, or to keep the prices for such products prohibitively high.

Concerns about beef safety reached a fever-pitch in December 2006. South Korean meat inspectors prohibited the entry of all U.S. beef into the nation after they found bone fragments in a shipment of approved, non-boned U.S. beef. Bone-in beef from the U.S. was prohibited, given that ground pieces of bone are more likely to contain traces of mad cow. South Korea claimed that the shipments violated a September 2006 agreement to lift a ban on all American beef, imposed in 2003 "after a case of mad-cow disease was discovered in a cow in Washington State…South Korean officials said that they would resume the imports of bone-in beef [only] if the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) determines that the United States is a 'controlled risk' country."