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by Jason Strother

It’s been two weeks since North Korea shelled a South Korean island. The deadly incident has had an extraordinary impact in South Korea.

Today, the country’s president promised to transform five islands along the maritime border with the North into “military fortresses.” The attack might have had another, less direct, effect.

It may have paved the way for last week’s trade agreement between Washington and Seoul. That agreement calls for Korea to reduce tariffs on US autos. That’s expected to be a boon for American carmakers.

But some Koreans say they got a bad deal out of the trade agreement. Tariffs on korean car exports will stay in place for four more years. An original agreement called for them to be lifted immediately, and South Korea had said it wouldn’t budge on that.

Some observers say they see a direct link between the renegotiation and North Korea’s shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island last month, an attack that killed two civilians and two marines.

Lee Taeho, who represents the group People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in Seoul, said the South Korean government capitulated to Washington and used the incident as cover.

“If there had been no Yeonpyeong incident, the trade agreement would have been more difficult to reach,” Lee said. “There had been a lot of criticism in Korea of any potential compromises, but because of the attack, the South Korean government was able to deflect criticism and make concessions.”

But Amy Jackson, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Seoul, said the timing of the attack and the revised agreement are coincidental. “President Obama announced back in June that he wanted the lingering issues resolved by the time of the G20 summit,” she said. “we already had a time frame that was in play, and though they didn’t reach agreement during last month’s G20, but they came quite close.”

Still, many observers described the lack of an agreement at the close of last month’s G20 summit as a big setback for the Obama Administration.

Now that a revised deal is in place, Amy Jackson said that it would bring more than economic benefits — the agreement would also shore up the U.S. military alliance with South Korea.

But Lee Taeho said a closer alliance with the U.S. military may not be so good for Korea’s relations with other regional powers, namely China. He said,
“Beijing might see a stronger US-Korea alliance as a threat, so I don’t think the agreement will help increase security in the region.”

But Lee noted that the trade agreement still has a ways to go. It requires ratification by lawmakers in South Korea and by the U.S. Congress.

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