Michigan and Ohio senators demand Obama gets tough on South Korean auto importing
 

Filed under: Government/Legal, Hyundai, Kia, South Korea

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Talk to most analysts in the auto world, and they'll say that the recent rise of South Korean automakers like Hyundai and Kia have been an absolute blessing to the industry as a whole. Consumers now have an array of quality, inexpensive products, extra jobs have landed in rural areas of the deep south thanks to American-based manufacturing facilities and the competition from low-priced models have forced domestic manufacturers to up their game.

But not everyone's thrilled about the balance of automotive trade between the two nations. According to The Detroit News, senators Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, recently wrote to the Obama administration in order to urge the President to take a hard line on the South Korean Free Trade Agreement.

The two senators aren't taking issue with Korean products here in the U.S., they simply think it's unfair that South Korea has a moratorium on importing any vehicles into the country. The senators want American companies to have the opportunity to do business on the peninsula - something that most automakers, with the exception of General Motors, have been pushing for since before the second President Bush was in office. GM, meanwhile, owns Korean automaker Daewoo, so it has no problem dealing with the current ban on auto imports.

For its part, Obama administration has said that it will once again open talks about the free trade agreement in hopes of making more American goods available in the global market.

[Source: The Detroit News | Image: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images]Michigan and Ohio senators demand Obama gets tough on South Korean auto importing originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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