Sanders signs trade intent in S. Korea

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a memorandum of agreement Monday with South Korea’s largest international trade organization and a Seoul nongovernmental organization promoting bilateral trade with the United States.

The text reads that the state, the Korea International Trade Association and the Korea-U.S. Economic Council believe South Korea and Arkansas “have bright prospects for expanded economic cooperation, potential to yield further, and substantial mutual benefits based on the complementary economic structures of the two.”

Arkansas and the South Korean private sector organizations pledged to promote trade, joint-venture facilitation and international relations through information exchange, sponsorship and promotion of exchange opportunities and business visits, encouragement of joint economic ventures and cooperation on trade, agricultural science and technology initiatives.

The agreement specifically mentions lithium, reserves of which have been identified in brine thousands of feet below south Arkansas, which businesses and the Sanders administration hope to turn into a major industry. The element is of use in batteries, and South Korea is a major producer of consumer electronics and motor vehicles.

U.S. states have long pursued bilateral trade relationships with other countries, such as Japan in the 1980s, during its economic boom, and South Korea the next decade, said Texas Tech University political scientist Dennis Patterson, who has studied the issue.

South Korea is a designated major non-NATO ally. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement went into effect in March 2012. In 2022, U.S. exports to South Korea were $94.4 billion, and imports were $130.1 billion, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The Arkansas Association of Asian Businesses, a nonprofit designed to connect the state and Asian concerns seeking to invest here, and Arkansas businesses seeking

to expand in Asian markets, started in 2017.

“Korea is very interested in doing investment all around the world and very much so in American states because of our very close alliance,” Patterson said.

Patterson said South Korean companies such as Samsung, the world’s secondlargest smartphone manufacturer and a major producer of lithium-ion batteries and other electronic components, as well as automakers Kia and Hyundai are all deeply interested in lithium, given the worldwide shift to electric vehicles.

“It makes a lot of sense to me, especially with respect to the reference to rare-earth minerals,” he said of the agreement. “Samsung is larger than any Japanese company. It’s one of the largest companies in the world.”

Agriculture, Arkansas’ largest industry, is also of interest to East Asian economies — Patterson said South Korea exercises protectionism over its own agriculture industry — as is tourism. Dallas-Fort Worth has a large community of Korean Americans.

“You’ve got a lot of resort sites and opportunities for that, and South Koreans are looking at foreign places to do tourism,” Patterson said, recalling South Korean business interest years ago in investing in West Coast real estate for Korean Americans and South Korean visitors.

He said South Korean businesses seeking to establish manufacturing or subcontracting in the United States may be interested in Arkansas because of its low labor cost compared to other states.

Sanders and a few other state government leaders are scheduled to continue their East Asian trade mission until Thursday.