Seoul's Beef Beef

The Bush administration and Congress must rescue free trade with South Korea.

There is no reason for South Koreans to fear beef from the United States. Seoul banned it five years ago after U.S. officials confirmed a case of mad-cow disease in an American herd. But the health risk, never great, has long since faded; Americans have been consuming meat with no mad-cow-related problems, and the World Organization for Animal Health declared U.S. beef fit for consumption last September. This fulfilled Seoul's final condition for lifting the ban, and, in April, newly elected President Lee Myung-bak announced that it would indeed end.

So why are South Koreans nearly rioting in protest, and why has Mr. Lee's approval rating plunged to 15 percent? No doubt the Korean reaction is irrational -- though perhaps not so different from Americans' own periodic import-related panic attacks, from the reaction to lead paint in Chinese toys to the Chilean grape scare of 1989, which caused U.S. officials to impound 2 million crates of fruit over wildly exaggerated fears of terrorist cyanide poisoning. No longer plagued by mass poverty and disease like its communist neighbor to the north, South Korea can afford exquisite sensitivity to remote health risks. In that sense, the booming, democratic South has earned the right to panic once in a while, just as Americans do.

But in South Korea, the health fears are compounded by nationalism. Mr. Lee, elected on a promise to mend fences with Washington, failed to anticipate that some of his people would see lifting the ban not as a sensible policy gesture but as a form of tribute to a foreign power with a troop presence that still gives it great influence over the country's fate. And Korean nationalism is compounded by Korean protectionism. A U.S.-South Korea trade agreement, signed last year, has enemies in both countries; its Korean foes will undoubtedly try to exploit Mr. Lee's predicament to shoot down the agreement. The road to victory for Korean protectionists, though, leads through the Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress, which has refused to consider the deal until Korea lifts the ban. Even a partial backtracking now by Mr. Lee could doom the pact on the Hill.

The Bush administration must do everything it can to rescue the agreement, which would slash tariffs in both countries. American trade negotiators, who are meeting with their South Korean counterparts this weekend, must help Mr. Lee find a way to reformulate his decision to lift the beef ban -- without actually reinstating the ban in any meaningful form. The Koreans are seeking to have American exporters voluntarily ensure that Korea-bound meat comes only from cows no older than 30 months. Five leading U.S. beef exporters have said they would temporarily add labels disclosing the age of the animals from which their product comes.

Once the beef issue is resolved, Congress will no longer have any good excuse to reject the trade deal. The only remaining objection would be the charge, voiced mainly by the United Auto Workers and a single automaker, Ford, that the pact does not sufficiently open the Korean car market. The Democratic leadership has expressed sympathy for this claim, as has the party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). The vast majority of American industries, however, have analyzed the deal and declared it a win-win. In a year of seemingly rising anti-globalization sentiment, the path of least resistance for Democrats might be to let the deal die and blame South Korea. But Democrats should take their cues instead from Mr. Lee, who is trying to do the right thing for his country despite furious resistance. If he can take the heat, they can, too.