A report for the U.S. Congress predicts that Seoul and Washington will continue to disagree about North Korea, changes in the bilateral military alliance and free trade negotiations next year. The report titled “Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade: Key Issues for the 110th Congress” by the Congressional Research Service covers tasks a new Congress opening in January should handle. It says lawmakers should pay attention to a serious decline in favorable attitudes toward the U.S. in South Korea, a decline in the degree to which South Koreans feel the need for U.S. forces to protect them, and “a developing network of regional free trade and security arrangements that could create an East Asian trading bloc or a security mechanism with diminished U.S. influence.”

Produced by Larry Niksch, Clare Ribando and others, the report says several issues “have divided the two governments and increasingly divide public and media opinion in South Korea and the U.S." Among them were international sanctions on North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear test, which brought South Korea-U.S. divisions “more into public view and has resulted in more criticism of South Korea in Congress and in the U.S. media,” it said. Turning to North Korea's nuclear program, the report said, "Confidence that the six-party talks (with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia) can achieve a diplomatic solution to eliminate Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs is diminishing" and Congress became more involved in, and at times critical of, U.S. policy toward North Korea in 2006. The role the next Congress plays in North Korea policy “will likely depend on the Administration’s response to these requirements" such as an act requiring the president to appoint a policy coordinator for North Korea.

On the bilateral military alliance, the report said the two allies could suffer conflict over the withdrawal of U.S. ground forces after the current cycle of withdrawals ends in September 2008 and the planned handover of wartime operational control of South Korea's troops to Seoul. Another thorny issue could be implementing command restructuring as a result of dismantling Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, the report said. "South Korea's assertion of a right to veto the employment of U.S. forces in Korea into other crises in Northeast Asia" could be included among the "future issues.”

As for the planned FTA, the report said Congress has seen increasing controversy over trade pacts in the last few years. The report points out that U.S. car, rice and pharmaceutical products face barriers to entering the Korean market and Korea is dissatisfied with U.S. anti-dumping regulations and restrictions on its textile exports.

(englishnews@chosun.com )