South Korea Requests To Be Excluded From Trump's Efforts To Increase Tariffs

South Korean officials have asked the Trump administration to exclude their country from US plans to impose aggressive tariffs on trade partners, emphasizing that Seoul is already applying low duties on American products under the free trade agreement between the two nations. South Korea's government on Friday said Deputy Trade Minister Park Jong-won made the request while travelling to Washington this week for meetings with unspecified officials from the White House, the Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative. The South Korean Trade Ministry didn't say what Park heard from the Americans.

Park cited how South Korean companies were contributing to the US economy through large-scale business investments and noted that the country was already imposing low duties on free trade partners such as the United States. He called for South Korea to be excluded from US plans to establish reciprocal tariffs with trade partners and raise duties for imported steel and aluminum, the ministry said. South Korea's top economic think tank this month slashed its growth forecast for the country's economy for the second time since November, expressing concern about the impact of US President Donald Trump's expanding tariffs and other measures aimed at resetting global trade.

The state-run Korea Development Institute projected the national economy to grow by 1.6% in 2025, which was 0.4 percentage points lower than its previous estimate. The group's economists assessed that Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs won't likely have a major impact on South Korea's economy, as those products account for less than 1% of its exports to the US. However, they expressed concern that possible increases in US duties for semiconductors and cars would hurt the country's trade-dependent economy more.

South Korea's acting president, Choi Sang-mok, on Friday called a meeting with trade and foreign policy officials to discuss the potential impact of Trump's trade measures, including reciprocal tariffs and possible product-specific duties for semiconductors, cars and pharmaceuticals. Choi, who is also South Korea's finance minister, instructed officials to examine how other major economies, including the European Union, Japan and China, are responding to Trump's trade policies, and try harder to effectively communicate South Korea's position to US officials. South Korea's trade surplus with the US reached $55.7 billion in 2024. According to the South Korean trade ministry, the country's tariff rates on US manufacturing imports is around zero percent.

(PTI)