SEOUL — South Korean officials found themselves scrambling on Tuesday morning after waking up to a social media post from President Donald Trump announcing a fresh hike in tariffs on their country.
Trump said he would raise levies from 15 percent to 25 percent on autos, lumber, pharmaceuticals and all other “Reciprocal TARIFFS” shipped from South Korea to the United States, citing the South Korean legislature’s failure to approve a trade deal he had reached with Seoul in July. “Why hasn’t the Korean Legislature approved it?” Trump wrote in the post.
That agreement — struck after much haggling between the two sides — pledged South Korean investments of $350 billion in the United States in return for the U.S. capping tariffs on South Korean exports at 15 percent. To celebrate the deal, the South Koreans gifted Trump a replica of a golden sixth-century crown worn by Korea’s ancient Silla Dynasty royals, when Trump visited in October.
Multiple draft bills that would have codified parts of the agreement into law in South Korea have remained stalled in parliament since November. South Korea’s governing party, the left-leaning Democratic Party, urged the conservative opposition to support those bills in a statement Tuesday. In response, conservatives asked why the ruling party, which holds a comfortable legislative majority, hadn’t passed the bills on its own. The Democratic Party said later in the day that it would aim to shepherd the bills through parliament by late February.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House said in a morning statement that it would dispatch Industry Minister Kim Jung-Kwan, who was in Canada to discuss the potential sale of South Korean submarines to Ottawa, to Washington and meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in a fact-finding mission.
Senior South Korean officials discussed a potential response to Trump’s announcement, the Blue House said in a statement texted to reporters. Seoul sought to preempt concerns about a potential hit to the economy, saying Trump’s threatened increases would not take effect immediately. “Our government seeks to convey our willingness to implement the tariff agreement to the United States,” it said. “We will proceed in a composed manner.”
Major South Korean auto shares tumbled during early trading in Seoul Tuesday, with Hyundai Motor and Kia stocks starting the day almost 4 percent lower than their closing prices from the previous day. The shares appeared to have recovered some of the early losses by the afternoon.
Trump had not issued an executive order that would put the tariff increases into force as of early Tuesday.
South Korea is among the United States’ top 10 trading partners, The Washington Post previously reported. The country’s proposed $350 billion investment in the U.S. is made up of two parts. The first is a $200 billion cash investment, which will be spread across a number of years, and $150 billion in shipbuilding cooperation, though details remain vague.
The Trump administration has sought to justify its tariffs on trading partners such as South Korea by referencing a 1977 law that grants the president economic powers to address national emergencies. Justices at the U.S. Supreme Court, who have appeared skeptical about the legality of that argument, are set to review whether Trump can continue wielding that authority.
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