And the crisis of the American automobile has reignited tensions

Last June, President Barack Obama received his South Korean counterpart, Lee Myung-bak. For the future of the US presence in Asia-Pacific, South Korea is a country of great importance and a test of continuity in their leadership. Because it symbolizes the two major challenges to which estconfronté the US Government: the balance of power and the economic and commercial integration. Sealed by us intervention after the attack on the Communist North against the South in 1950, the américano-coréenne alliance is a pillar of the role of the United States in the region next to those that bind them to the Japan and Taiwan. Final testing of the North Korea nuclear and ballistic and the suspension of multilateral negotiations on the dismantling of nuclear program of this country have traced these alliances among the hot topics of the new democratic administration.

President Lee received a reaffirmation unequivocally of the American nuclear umbrella, at a time where the probability of incidents, including naval in bask, becomes very high. This confirmation occurs in a context of uncertainty on the future of the regional strategic balances, which is the attitude of China. It seems to be adjusted to the excesses of the North Korean regime, arguing with the Russia of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing sanctions. But the economic crisis imposes heavy constraints and barriers of the American domestic politics are not the same way with regard to the South Korea and China.

Américano-coréen free trade agreement the Obama administration has inherited from the Bush administration remains hostage to hostile Congress elected to free trade for the defence of jobs in the United States. This is particularly sensitive in the case of the Korea of the South, because cars and spare parts are a former point of friction. And the crisis of the American automobile has reignited tensions. In a sign of goodwill in the wake of his election in December 2007, Lee Myung-bak had lifted the ban on us beef, to the fury of a part of its public opinion. But more than George Bush, Obama cannot ignore a US Congress reluctant to advance the commercial projects of the Executive. He estintéressant noted the continuity between Obama and its pre-décesseur trade policy, despite electoral rhetoric which had suggested that the new authority would listen carefully to the demands of the unions, traditional Democrat allies. Obama must face the realities, both those who trade an instrument of prosperity and led him to support the ratification of trade agreements negotiated by the Republicans and those who see a more hostile Congress that it is democratic majority and that the context is very negative. This is not for nothing that Obama chose in Ron Kirk a "political", former Mayor of Dallas, such as special trade representative leading position, as should explain to the Americans that while foreign competition, exchanges remain an instrument of prosperity American.

Analysis of Sino-US economic relations suggests the same conclusion. The promise of firmness of the Obama candidate to a commercial competitor unfair caved in to the strategic importance of the relationship between the two countries. The maintenance of the "strategic dialogueéconomique" (SED) introduced by Henry Paulson, entémoigne. Recognition of the interdependence and balancing on the folders monetary and commercial, for not pushing in his deletions a China concerned by its internal stability and first global holder of Treasury bills, U.S. pressures for a stronger attitude to North Korea's protégé, this policy fits hardly a trade confrontation with China. On the Lee Korea, if the political and military alliance is reaffirmed, the seriousness of the situation in the North Korea does not ignore the economic and social constraints internal to pass a free trade agreement that would be misinterpreted even if Americans are provided accommodation. Thus, it is possible that the euro-coréen free trade agreement track the day before with the American ally. But if the United States later challenge the trade agreements, trade is an essential vector of their presence in a region in full transformation, where the future of peace and global prosperity is in part.