South Korean leader visiting U.S.

Ho hum. The South Korean prime minister is coming to the U.S. this week to meet with President Bush and allegedly break the log jam on a free trade pact between the two countries. Excuse my lack of excitement, but this has dragged on for years, and there is no evidence of any committment, except for playing footsie, on the Korean side to actually do anything.

Korea refuses to believe in the resolve of key congressmen and senators, that unless the Korean beef market is opened fully to U.S. beef, all other trade issues are off the table. Until Korea accepts this, little progress is likely.

Korea and Japan are the Asian capitals of BSE (Mad Cow Disease), each with a couple dozen cases in their domestic beef herds. For them to shut their doors to the wholesome, heavily inspected U.S. product, where two cases total, have been found in dairy cows imported from Canada (none in domestically bred beef cattle) is the height of hypocrisy.

Congress itself is also to blame for the lack of progress. Foreign trade is like pregnancy. You can't be a little bit pregnant. You either are or you aren't. That's the way it is with foreign trade--it's an all or nothing proposition. Either you're for it or you're against it. There is no middle ground, and that's way foreign leaders doubt the resolve of the U.S. to fully commit to trade.

Just this last week, the U.S. House tabled a free trade pact with Colombia. This is inexcuseable, to stand up a strong U.S. ally like this, located right next door to Venezualan dictator and U.S. hater Hector Garcia--Raul Castro's best friend in South America, actually. A really dumb foreign policy mistake. But even worse, it confirms for all countries that the U.S. is a fickle and unreliable trading partner. Nothing could be worse for business.

The Democrats who control Congress are trying to help Obama and Hillary in the primaries in rust belt states, where the unions blame cheap foreign workers for their own bloated wage and benefits contracts that have driven tons of technologically-outmoded factories out of business--with a big loss of jobs.

Such protectionism by the Democrats may seem to be smart short term politics, in the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries. But it is bad long term U.S. policy.

The U.S. needs to sell products overseas to have a healthy and vibrant economy. It needs to sell them everywhere, sending a strong message worldwide that we're open for busines--whether it's with Korea, Colombia or whoever.

A strong and consistent trade policy by the U.S. is what will open markets, not playing each country and worker off against each other for short term political advantage. This is very small and shortsighted thinking.