Uncle Sam Gets Snookered Again : South Korea: Check the fine print on our deal to sell Seoul 120 jet fighters: Most of them will be assembled there; and the boost to Korean defense won’t hasten the return of U.S. forces.

Having agreed to promote development of the Japanese aircraft industry through technology transfer and co-development of the FSX fighter, it is probably only fair that we should bring South Korea into the business, too. At least that will ensure long-term competition for the Japanese. Nevertheless, one cannot help wondering why the United States continues to feel compelled to give away the technological basis of its leadership in aircraft, the last bastion of U.S. industrial supremacy.

That is the only possible outcome of the deal for Korea’s new fighter, announced three weeks ago in Washington.

Under the agreement, Korea will obtain 120 new F-16s or F-18s (the final choice has not been made). But it will not simply buy these planes off the shelf from the U.S. producers. Rather, it will buy only the first 12 fighters outright. The next 36 will be shipped as knockdown kits to be assembled in Korea. Once the Koreans have learned the techniques of assembly, the United States will then license Korean companies to engage in full production of the remaining 78 planes--and will transfer $4 billion of technology to do so.

As a sweetener to clinch the deal, the United States also will import goods worth 30% of the value of the planes as an offset to cushion the impact on the trade balance of a nation with which we have a $7-billion trade deficit.

Why are we doing this? Is it to take advantage of lower-cost production in Korea to realize a saving on defense expenditures for both the United States and South Korea? Well, not exactly. The Defense Department estimates that it will cost the Koreans two to three times as much to assemble and build these planes as it would to simply buy them off the shelf. Moreover, the fact that they will not be part of an extended U.S. production run means that the costs to us also will be higher than they otherwise might have been. So the net effect will be a greater defense burden for both countries.

Well, then, it must be that the deal will allow a better response to pressing defense needs by getting the planes into service faster. Again, the answer is a surprising no . Defense experts say that the new agreement will actually get the planes on line later rather than sooner.

Are there, perhaps, special modifications that only Koreans are able or willing to make? Once more, the answer is no . The planes are to be plain vanilla.

Does Korea need help with a burdensome trade deficit that is sapping its ability to fund economic development? This, of course, is ridiculous. The opposite is the case. Korea is struggling to keep an already embarrassingly high trade surplus from growing.

Surely, then, the United States must be getting valuable aerospace or other technology from Korea in return for the knowledge it is transferring. Again, the answer is negative. Korea does not have aerospace technology, and VCR or other technology is not part of the deal.

In fact, the truth is that, just as the only purpose of the FSX was to promote Japan’s aircraft industry, so there is only one logical reason for this deal: to build up the fledgling Korean aircraft industry.

But, we are told by U.S. and Korean officials (one can almost hear them coordinating their press guidance) by strengthening Korean forces, this arrangement will allow a faster reduction of U.S. troop levels in Korea. Besides, they say--and this is supposed to be the clincher--if the United States doesn’t do this deal, Korea might buy fighters from some other nation.

Well, one can at least admire the Koreans’ chutzpah. Imagine, here is a country that owes its existence and current prosperity almost entirely to the United States. In an address to Congress, South Korea’s president, Roh Tae Woo, urged the legislators not to reduce U.S. troop levels in his country under any circumstance, because that would invite attack. Nevertheless, the next day his minions told U.S. officials that Korea can always buy planes elsewhere if we don’t want to accept Korean terms. This is truly world-class gall.

But what are we to make of our people in Washington? Why don’t they point out that if making planes in Korea will facilitate troop-level reductions, buying them off the shelf would do so even faster. Don’t U.S. officials know that the alternatives to a U.S. fighter are all inferior? The Europeans do not now have a plane to match the U.S. offerings, and the Japanese are not going to let Koreans co-produce Japanese planes.

Beyond this, however, why can’t U.S. officials simply point out that if South Korea can find other places to buy airplanes, the United States can find other places to keep troops?