US Reaches Trade Deal With South Korea

[Swordsmyth]

In some welcome news amid escalating global trade war fears, on Sunday the U.S. and South Korea reached an agreement on revising the existing 6-year-old bilateral trade deal as well as Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on steel imports, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mnuchin said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer reached “a very productive understanding” with South Korea on the tariffs to reduce imports and the existing trade deal known as Korus, and added that he expects "to sign that agreement soon." The resolution means that the US now has tariff exemptions with the EU, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and South Korea.
As a result of the agreement, which he called "an absolute win-win", South Korea "will reduce the amount of steel that they send into the United States."


South Korea - the world's 7th largest export economy, whose exports amount to a whopping 45% of GDP - had a trade surplus with the U.S. of about $18 billion in 2017, down from $23 billion in 2016, with cars accounting for more than 70% of the value of the surplus.
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/us%20korea%20trade%20balance.jpg
Bloomberg adds (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-25/south-korea-says-agreement-made-with-u-s-on-trade-deal-tariffs) that S.Korea Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong also said trade negotiators from the two countries agreed “in principle” on both issues. Oddly, Kim said South Korea made no concessions to further open its agricultural market to U.S. exporters - something he described as a red line. He also said that there’s been “no retreat” on tariffs removed in Korus, which is strange because somehow the two sides are said to have reached a compromise, yet neither admits to "retreating" on policy issues.
Previously, frictions over Korus emerged when Trump blamed the U.S.’s large trade deficit with South Korea on the "horrible" agreement, and as a result, the open issue has been seen as a potential wedge between the allies as both their leaders plan for expected meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The Trade Ministry said Kim will brief on the outcome of the trade negotiation to media Monday morning.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-25/us-reaches-trade-deal-south-korea-mnuchin-hopeful-trade-truce-china

[dannno]

The resolution means that the US now has tariff exemptions with the EU, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and South Korea.


Did anybody predict that tariffs with other countries would be going down?? Who was that again?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hIjgofcuWU

[dannno]

Trump Gets First Major Trade Deal as South Korea Looks to Avoid Tariffs

By ALAN RAPPEPORT (https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-rappeport) and JIM TANKERSLEYMARCH 26, 2018

WASHINGTON — President Trump is on the verge of securing his first major trade deal, leveraging the threat of tariffs to gain concessions from South Korea on exports of steel and imports of American cars.

The deal, which the White House could announce on Tuesday, would comes at moment of heightened tension on the Korean Peninsula as the Trump administration prepares to hold talks with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Ties between Washington and Seoul had become strained over disagreements about trade, including Mr. Trump’s steel tariffs, and threatened to further complicate the already fraught discussions with North Korea.

The finalization of a trade agreement with South Korea would hand Mr. Trump a victory in his “America First” approach to trade, in which he has threatened to take tough trade action unless other countries agree to concessions, including a reduction in the gap between what they export to the United States and what America exports to their shores. The blanket steel and aluminum tariffs announced by the White House earlier this month are the most recent example of that blunt approach, with the White House using exemptions and revisions (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/24/business/trumps-tariffs-trade.html) as a carrot to avoid the tariff stick.

“I think the strategy has worked, quite frankly,” Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, told Fox News in an interview on Sunday (http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2018/03/25/march-for-our-lives-organizers-send-message-to-congress.html). “We announced the tariff. We said we were going to proceed. But, again, we said we’d simultaneously negotiate.”

“I think this is an absolute win-win,” he added, referring to the agreement with South Korea.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/business/south-korea-us-tariffs.html

[Swordsmyth]

South Korea said on Friday it has notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it seeks to suspend tariff concessions on imported U.S. goods worth $480 million, in response to U.S. measures against South Korean imports.U.S. President Donald Trump slapped a steep tariff on imported washing machines and solar panels in February to protect American manufacturers, prompting a fierce backlash from South Korea and China.
South Korea's trade ministry said in a statement that it has informed the WTO Council for Trade in Goods that its plan to suspend tariff concessions on imported U.S. goods, which are equal in value to the South Korean washing machines and solar panels affected by U.S. tariffs.
The trade ministry said it plans to produce details on which U.S. products will be subject to the suspension closer to when it takes effect. Under the WTO framework, a country's right of suspension on concessions of a trading partner cannot be exercised for up to three years from when the trading partner's safeguards take effect.

More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/south-korea-notifies-wto-plans-suspend-tariff-concessions-071040070--business.html