The United States-Korea free trade agreement (KORUS) and its impact on China's textile and apparel exports to the United States

This study focused on United States-Korea free trade agreement (KORUS) which is including trade in goods and services, and government preparation issues. KORUS is identified as the most economically free trade agreement after NAFTA. The textile and apparel (T&A) is one of the most important sectors of the KORUS. The KORUS doesn't have impacts only on South Korea and United States; it also has some effects on China as well. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impacts of the KORUS on China's T&A exports to the United States. In this research topic, independent variable is the United States- Korea free trade agreement (KORUS) and the dependent variable is China's textile and apparel exports to the United States. The author used quantitative methodology to collect the data which is including some mathematics formulas. Based on this article the impacts of KORUS on China's T&A exports to the United States are focused on the following three areas: 1.Tariff cuts on South Korea's T&A exports to the United States. 2. Restrictive rules of origin .3.Strict border enforcement.

Findings about the evaluation of these impacts, with special focused on diversion effects of the KORUS indicate:

• China and South Korea were much more similar in the T&A exports to the United States in 2005 than 2010. With regard to disaggregated T&A products, South Korea and China were more similar in their apparel exports than their exports in yarn & fiber, made-up textile or fabrics in 2010

• KORUS tariff cuts in South Korea exports caused the decrease in the quantity of china's export.

• The trade diversion effects of the KORUS demonstrated that apparel is the most effective category in China's T&A exports to the United States. KORUS will also have negative limited impacts on china's exports in other categories.

As most other research, this study also has limitations and, therefore, future research opportunities. First, researchers could consider more products besides apparel, in competition between the T&A export of China and South Korea to the United States. Another limitation is, the researcher could examine how KORUS could be expanded to Asian countries as wel

Choose one of discussions qustiones:

1. What is the impact of China's apparel exports to the United States in China's industry?

2. Does Korea can create a 21st century global business center?

3. How the KORUS can lead to expanded U.S. exports to Asian countries?

4. Do you have any suggestion about more product levels that researcher could use to evaluate the competition between the T&A exports of China and South Korea in the U.S. market?