USA kräver bilaterala samtal om Koreaavtal

Robert Emmet "Bob" Lighthizer (born October 11, 1947) is an American lawyer and the current United States Trade Representative. After receiving both his undergraduate and law degrees from Georgetown University, Lighthizer joined the law firm of Covington & Burling. He later served as chief minority counsel and chief counsel and staff director for the United States Senate Committee on Finance. In 1983, during the Reagan administration, he became deputy trade representative. Lighthizer was a partner with the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. On January 2, 2017, President Donald Trump announced that he planned to nominate Lighthizer as U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. Four months later, on May 11, 2017, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 82–14 vote. His confirmation jumpstarted President Trump's NAFTA renegotiation process.

The United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement (officially: Free trade agreement between the United States of America and the Republic of Korea), also known as KORUS FTA, is a trade agreement between the United States and the Republic of Korea. Negotiations were announced on February 2, 2006, and concluded on April 1, 2007. The treaty was first signed on June 30, 2007, with a renegotiated version signed in early December 2010. The agreement was ratified by the United States on October 12, 2011, with the Senate passing it 83–15 and the House 278-151. It was ratified by the National Assembly of South Korea on November 22, 2011, with a vote of 151–7, with 12 abstentions. The agreement entered into effect in March 2012. The trade agreement involves an estimated 362 million consumers in the United States and the Republic of Korea. The treaty's provisions eliminate 95% of each nation's tariffs on goods within five years, and create new protections for multinational financial services and other firms. For the United States, the treaty was the first free trade agreement (FTA) with a major Asian economy and the largest trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. For South Korea, the KORUS FTA is second in size only to the FTA signed with the European Union and dwarfs recent FTAs signed with Chile, Singapore, the European Free Trade Area and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).