By Trevor Hunnicutt and Ju-min Park
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the U.S. will charge a 15% tariff on imports from South Korea as part of a deal that eases, for now, tension with a top-10 trading partner and key Asian ally.
The arrangement, announced shortly after Trump met with Korean officials at the White House, came during a blizzard of trade policy announcements ahead of a self-imposed August 1 deadline.
That is when Trump has promised higher tariffs will kick in on U.S. imports from a range of countries. Imports from South Korea, a powerhouse exporter of computer chips, cars and steel, faced a 25% rate.
“I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has agreed to a Full and Complete Trade Deal with the Republic of Korea,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump said South Korea had agreed to invest $350 billion in the United States in projects selected by Trump and to purchase $100 billion of liquefied natural gas and other energy products, the U.S. president said. Both steps have been major priorities for Trump, a Republican, in other trade deals.
After Trump’s announcement, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said the country’s tariff deal with the United States would put South Korea on an equal or better footing compared with other countries. The claim could not be immediately verified.
He also said the countries had agreed to set up a $350 billion investment fund, out of which $150 billion was aimed at a shipbuilding partnership.
Reuters has not seen the text of the deal or analyzed its terms.
It was not immediately clear how the investment deals would be structured, where the financing would come from, over what time frame they would be implemented and to what extent their terms would be binding on the parties involved. Trump said additional South Korean investments would be announced later.
Lee will visit the White House “within the next two weeks” for a meeting with Trump, the U.S. president added.
Trump also said South Korea would accept American products, including cars, trucks and agriculture into its markets and impose no import duties on them.
Under the deal, the U.S. would also lower tariffs on South Korean-made autos to 15%, from 25%, the South Korean presidential office said. They also said computer chips and pharmaceutical tariffs imposed on the country’s U.S.-bound exports would not be worse than other countries, and that South Korea’s rice and beef markets would not be open.
South Korean Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan and Minister for Trade Yeo Han-koo had been in Washington for talks with senior U.S. officials and were believed to have met with Trump shortly before the deal announcement.
Pressure had been mounting on South Korea since Japan clinched a deal to cut Trump’s threatened tariffs to 15% earlier this month.
Amid the last-minute push by government officials to reach a tariff deal, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics inked a $16.5 billion chip deal with Tesla.
South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution also signed a $4.3 billion deal to supply Tesla with energy storage system batteries, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Ju-min Park; Editing by Jamie Freed and Stephen Coates)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.