US businesses hope South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak will remove restrictions on US beef imports when he visits Washington this month in a bid to break a deadlock on a free trade pact, reports AFP.

Beef was not an issue in the South Korea-US free trade agreement signed by the two governments in June last year but key US lawmakers are refusing to ratify the trade deal if Seoul does not reopen its market to American beef.

“We are hoping that there will be some sort of deliverable and forward movement in this particular area which is absolutely essential if we expect to be able to get it (the free trade agreement) passed through Congress,” said William Oberlin, the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in South Korea.

“Best case scenario—What is it? President Lee comes with the beef problem solved or most of the beef problem solved,” Oberlin said at a forum of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington. South Korea in 2006 ended a total ban on US beef imports, imposed in 2003 due to concerns over mad cow disease.

But it allows only meat from cattle aged 30 months or less, and excludes bones and other materials deemed to carry a risk of spreading the disease. South Korea was a major market for American beef—worth an annual 850 million dollars—before the ban.

Lee, making his first visit to Washington since taking office February 25, is scheduled to meet US President George W. Bush at the Camp David presidential retreat on April 18-19 for talks in which the beef issue and North Korea’s nuclear problem are expected to be highly featured.

The US leader is eager to get the free trade agreement—the most commercially significant US trade deal in 15 years—implemented before he leaves office in January 2009.

Aside from the beef issue, US Congress concerns about South Korean barriers to US autos and a tight US legislative calendar ahead of November presidential polls could scuttle the deal. The parliaments of the two countries have still not ratified the agreement.

“It is very remote” that the outgoing South Korean parliament, for which elections will be held next week, would pass the free trade agreement, Oberlin said. Although Lee’s conservative party is poised to win a big majority in the polls, all outstanding legislation before the current National Assembly would have to be reintroduced for debate in the new legislature. Passage of the free trade agreement “probably would not be until the August-September timeframe,” Oberlin said.

But some experts wonder whether US lawmakers will endorse any free trade deal amid an election debate on its usefulness following manufacturing-job losses blamed on the landmark North American Free Trade Agreement. The agreement created the largest trading bloc in the world by eliminating import tariffs on goods plying Canada, the United States and Mexico.

Senator Hillary Clinton, vying to be the Democratic candidate for the presidential election, is among those who have questioned the viability of the US-South Korea agreement. It “does not create a level playing field for American carmakers,” she said.

“It looks like the FTA is not going anywhere,” said Dennis Halpin, a professional staff member of the US House of Representatives’ committee on foreign affairs. Jason Kearus, another Congressional staffer dealing with trade issues, said a mere announcement by Seoul that it would remove restrictions on beef or autos were not enough to convince lawmakers to ratify the deal.

“I don’t think we are quite that naive in Congress. I think there needs to be some assurance that going forward the market will remain open and that’s true of beef, its true of autos,” he said.

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