It seems a bit ironic to me that South Korea is a country calling for an end to protectionism considering their past protectionist history:

The enthusiasm among some in Washington over a “Buy American” provision in the stimulus bill has not gone down well here. “Protectionism is not the right answer to get ourselves out of this crisis,” South Korea’s Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon tells me. “[W]e have . . . a good lesson from our past history — in [the] 1930s with [the] Smoot-Hawley Act and the exercise of beggar-thy-neighbor policies, and it didn’t work at all.”  (…)

In recent months, Seoul has joined calls, including at November’s G-20 summit in Washington, for countries to abstain from raising tariffs. As one of three countries (including Britain and Brazil) guiding the agenda for April’s G-20 summit in London, Korea is likely to keep free trade high on the priority list.  (…)

The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates that the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, known as “Korus,” would add $10 billion-$12 billion to the U.S. economy. Domestic studies here put the benefits even higher for Korea as a percentage of GDP. The deal would open almost every sector in Korea to U.S. imports, including services. In return, Mr. Kim secured U.S. concessions on issues like pick-up truck tariffs. Korus also phases out bilateral economic irritants such as regulatory red tape in Korea’s automobile sector.

Yet in the U.S., the Democratic-led Congress — beholden to unions — is dragging its feet. Last year, Barack Obama complained that Korus doesn’t pay “proper attention” to America’s “key industries and agricultural sectors.” In 2007, then Sen. Hillary Clinton called the agreement “inherently unfair.” Mrs. Clinton, now secretary of state, visits Seoul next week.

American discontent centers on the auto sector. U.S. unions ignore the pact’s opening of the Korean car market and fixate on the fact that Korean auto makers sell more units in America than U.S. companies do in Korea. Never mind the differences in relative market size, or the fact that Koreans are better at making cars Americans like than vice versa.  [Wall Street Journal]

I don’t think it is accurate to say there is much enthusiasm in the South Korean public for the FTA considering last year’s mad cow nonsense, but it is accurate to say that the Lee Myung-bak government is very pro-KORUS FTA.  The Lee Myung-bak government went through much domestic political opposition to get the KORUS FTA passed within Korea just to have it sit in limbo now in the US because of the change in administration that is beholden to labor unions.

There is really nothing Lee Myung-bak can do about that now.