{"id":24605,"date":"2014-03-09T10:32:33","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T15:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=24605"},"modified":"2014-03-09T10:32:33","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T15:32:33","slug":"prime-minister-jets-off-to-south-korea-for-trade-deal-photo-op","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/03\/09\/prime-minister-jets-off-to-south-korea-for-trade-deal-photo-op\/","title":{"rendered":"Prime Minister jets off to South Korea for trade deal photo-op"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not clear whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to Seoul to actually sign a free trade agreement with South Korea<\/a> or if it’s just another grip-and-grin photo-op to announce an as-yet-unfinalized deal:<\/p>\n

Harper said on his 24 Seven webcast that this would be Canada\u2019s first trade deal in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt adds, obviously, to the important deals we have in the Americas and in Europe now. And it\u2019s really given the Canadian economy as good, if not better, free-trade access than virtually every major developed economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Harper added that South Korea is \u201ca relatively open economy, a relatively, very progressive economy and advanced democracy, and it has trade linkages all through Asia itself.\u201d He said it\u2019s \u201cprobably the best gateway you can get into long-term trade agreement access into the Asia-Pacific region.\u201d<\/p>\n

NDP trade critic Don Davies said growing trade with South Korea and Asia in general is a good thing. But he was skeptical that the week\u2019s coming ceremonies would amount to much more of a repeat of Brussels.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre they going to go just to shake hands, have a photo-op and sign an agreement-in-principle without the actual details or text to be released?\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies again assailed the government for a total lack of transparency, and questioned whether the deal would be able to protect jobs in Canada\u2019s auto sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn trade deals, it\u2019s details that matter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Conservatives have the least transparent trade policy probably in the developed world. They are closed, they are secretive and they don\u2019t involve a lot of stakeholders; they don\u2019t involve the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deal would mark progress toward expanding trade with Asia, a major economic priority of the Harper government. Coming on the heels of the Canada-EU pact, it would allow Prime Minister Stephen Harper to trumpet his first significant free-trade deal in Asia, and give impetus to other negotiations, particularly with Japan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not clear whether Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to Seoul to actually sign a free trade agreement with South Korea or if it’s just another grip-and-grin photo-op to announce an as-yet-unfinalized deal: Harper said on his 24 Seven webcast that this would be Canada\u2019s first trade deal in the Asia-Pacific region. \u201cIt adds, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,6,25],"tags":[432,320,279,258],"class_list":["post-24605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-cancon","category-economics","tag-diplomacy","tag-freetrade","tag-korea","tag-stephenharper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6oR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24605"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24606,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24605\/revisions\/24606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}