South Korean farmers attack U.S. beef

CHUNG SUNG-JUN/Getty Images News

Think going to your local Safeway is unpleasant? Try shopping in South Korea. When the supermarket chain Lotte Mart attempted to be the first South Korean retailer to put U.S. beef back on its shelves last Friday, things got ugly. Protesters ransacked several stores and scuffled with the police. To make matters worse, some farmers even hurled cow dung to show their displeasure. But although the protests forced a handful of the chain’s 53 stores to stop selling the beef that same day, the chaos didn’t slow some eager Korean customers from gobbling up the cheaper American import. Lotte said that it had sold an estimated 2 tons worth of U.S. beef as of 2 p.m. on Friday, four times greater than the sale of imported beef the entire previous week.

Before South Korea shut its doors to U.S. beef in December 2003, citing anxiety over mad-cow disease, the country had been the third largest importer of U.S. beef. But Koreans were concerned about more than just mad-cow disease; another motive was simply to protect domestic farmers and ranchers from competition. The ban surfaced as a sticking point between the two countries during the recent negotiation of the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement, which was finally signed on June 30th after months of grueling talks. But with a disgruntled U.S. auto industry, the road to ratification here at home is still an uneasy one (click here for a closer look at the deal). Let’s hope U.S. autoworkers don’t decide to fling cow manure at any Hyundais or Kias as they express their concern about the agreement.