Korea Beef Redux

Trade in food products can have tremendous political resonance.  A new example of this phenomenon is the mass protests in South Korea regarding the proposed reopening of South Korea’s market to US beef in light of alleged risks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“mad cow disease”).  The protests have deepened over the last weeks and finally made it to the NYT’s headlines. The South Korean President’s popularity has dropped dramatically over his agreement with the US to reopen the South Korean market, which US negotiators have made a condition for the Korea-US FTA. See http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/08/asia/korea.php. To put this in a different light, recall that when Canada banned Brazilian beef imports in the context in 2001 on the grounds that there had been an outbreak of mad cow disease in Brazil, this drew a strong reaction from Brazilian agricultural groups which stoked Brazilian popular reaction against Canada’s unilateral action.  The Brazilians maintained that Canada’s actions were in bad faith because there was no evidence of mad cow disease in Brazil.  The Canadian action led to large protests, a huge barbecue before the Canadian embassy, a consumer boycott of Canadian products, and soured Brazil-Canada relations. See Mark MacKinnon, Beef Ban Could End As Brazil Talks Tough; ‘No Evidence’ Found of Mad-Cow Disease, GLOBE & MAIL (Toronto), Feb. 10, 2001, at A1. Note that in the Brazil case, however, Brazil was the exporter, not the importer.