An agreement with a tale of four deadlines

Almost lost in the news that the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement was signed yesterday was how often the deadline for the negotiations changed over the weekend.
In fact, by yesterday morning, the negotiators were ready to kill the word deadline.
To allow the U.S. Congress 90 days to review the deal under the trade promotion authority, the U.S. negotiators stressed the talks would have to wrap up by April 1, U.S. Eastern time. Since April 1 was a Sunday, the Americans altered the deadline to the end of the previous business day, 6 p.m. Eastern on March 30, or 7 a.m. March 31 Korean time.
But the two sides pushed the deadline back to midnight March 31 Korean time, taking into account last-minute breakthroughs in what had appeared to be stalled talks.
And that deadline was extended for another 48 hours, as the negotiators struggled to narrow their differences.
The new deadline was 1 a.m. yesterday morning, but even that was pushed to 1 p.m. The official announcement of the signing was made at 4 p.m.
The logic to these changes is that since the U.S. Congress was closed on Sunday anyway, the negotiators wouldn’t have to wrap up the talks and submit the results until the Congress met yesterday morning in Washington, or last night Korean time.
The U.S. negotiators frequently used the deadline as leverage despite the extensions. But whether Korean officials were aware that the U.S. officials could push back the deadline without approval from the Congress is not clear.
One attorney, who requested anonymity, said, in the legal field, if an expiration date falls on a holiday, it is frequently pushed back to the following business day.
“It would have been foolish of the government not to know this,” the attorney said. “But maybe it chose not to bring that up so that the negotiations could continue.”

By Yoon Chang-hee JoongAng Ilbo [jeeho@joongang.co.kr]