Chad Bown has an interesting piece in the Washington Post's "Think Tank Town". Bown argues that KORUS is not about free trade, but about discrimination:
"This discrimination is apparent when you examine how the free trade agreement proposes to grant Korean automotive and parts manufactures (think Kia and Hyundai) preferred access to the U.S. market vis-a-vis U.S. imports from the imminently competitive Chinese auto industry. What's the harm in this? Plenty."
He argues that
The KORUS-FTA is also problematic because it will likely retard progress in the more economically important multilateral negotiations under the Doha Round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations.
