The US agreed to revise its trade deal with South Korea and spare the country from US President Donald Trump’s steel tariff, as the allies sought to resolve disputes before planned meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un….
The US agreed to revise its trade deal with South Korea and spare the country from US President Donald Trump’s steel tariff, as the allies sought to resolve disputes before planned meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The two countries reached an agreement “in principle” on the bilateral free trade agreement known as Korus, South Korea’s trade ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The announcement came after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday that US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had reached a “very productive understanding.”
To avoid the steel tariff, South Korea would limit US shipments of the metal to about 2.7 million tonnes a year, the ministry said.
The country also agreed to double to 50,000 the number of US cars that could be imported without meeting local safety standards, although American manufacturers sell far fewer cars in the market.
Lighthizer’s press office didn’t respond to requests for comment on the agreement. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC on Monday that “it looks like we’re going to have a very, very good result” on Korus.
The deal would be Trump’s first since taking office promising to put “America First” last year and triggering a series of trade disputes with nations from Canada and China.
Trump criticised the United State’s six-year-old trade deal with South Korea as a “job killer,” and opened negotiations, even as he sought President Moon Jae-in’s help to pressure North Korea over Kim’s nuclear weapon’s programme.
The disagreement threatened to drive a wedge between the two allies as Moon prepared to meet Kim next month, an encounter that Trump needs to pave the way for his own proposed summit with the North Korean leader.
