Obama Seeks to Wrap Up FTA Before November

U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday in Washington that he told the U.S. Trade Representative to begin negotiations on resolving remaining issues over the free trade deal with Korea before his November visit to Seoul.

After announcing a plan to double American exports and create 70,000 jobs within the next five years, Obama said the agreement will provide new jobs and opportunities to the people of the two countries.

“You heard what the president said in Toronto about South Korea, that there are outstanding issues that we see that we believe can and should be resolved prior to the president’s trip to Seoul in November,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a regular news briefing. “Our expectation is that the outstanding issues can be worked through prior to his getting there.”

“Obviously, we have concerns about -- you heard the president enumerate those concerns back even several years about some of the auto provisions in the South Korean free trade agreement that was submitted by the Bush administration.”

“One of the reasons we still see outstanding issues…were some of the auto provisions in that,” Gibbs said, saying the White House will press for the resolution of the car dispute in upcoming additional talks on the free trade deal.

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