US Trump "Korea also wants negotiations" confident in mutual tariff negotiations

[Financial News]  Donald Trump, the President of the United States, who re-notified Korea of a 25% mutual tariff this month, claimed that Korea also wants tariff negotiations and that many countries are active in negotiations.
According to foreign media such as Al Jazeera, Trump met with reporters at Andrews Joint Base in Maryland, USA, on the 13th (local time) and mentioned Korea while pointing out trade negotiations with the European Union (EU). He said, “The EU wants to open their country. I would say Japan is much less open in terms of market opening.” He continued, “As you know, Japan sells millions of cars to us in the US, but they do not take our cars, so we do not sell cars to Japan,” he emphasized. He claimed, "But they are all changing their ways very, very quickly, and Korea wants to conclude negotiations," adding, "As you know, Korea is paying considerable tariffs."

Trump declared on April 2 that countries around the world had set unfair tariff and non-tariff trade barriers on US products, and that he would offset this by imposing mutual tariffs on imports. He imposed mutual tariffs ranging from 10% to 50% on 185 countries and regions worldwide, but announced on the 9th of the same month that he would partially defer the imposition of tariffs for 90 days.

The Trump administration announced that it would conduct tariff negotiations with 90 countries during the 90-day period, but by the end of the grace period on the 8th of this month, only the UK and Vietnam had concluded negotiations. In response, Trump extended the grace period until August 1 and unilaterally notified major trading countries such as Korea of mutual tariffs.

Regarding this, Kevin Hassett, Chairman of the US White House National Economic Council (NEC), warned on the 13th on US ABC News that "if the President does not get a sufficiently good negotiation result, tariffs will become a reality." He emphasized that there is a negotiation deadline until August 1 and said, "The conversation is ongoing, and we will see where the dust settles."

Meanwhile, the EU confirmed in an announcement on the 13th that Trump had notified the EU of a 30% mutual tariff the previous day. It also announced that it would delay the retaliatory tariff measures on US imports, which were scheduled to take effect on the 14th, until early August.



pjw@fnnews.com Park Jong-won Reporter