Trade minister says Seoul won’t rush a deal, seeks balanced outcome
South Korea and the United States will hold tariff talks in Washington, DC later this week, the Korean government said Sunday.
According to the announcement, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok and Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Ahn Duk-geun will attend the levy discussions with their US counterparts, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
The Korean government said the trade consultation is taking place at the request of the US side and the involved parties are working on the schedule and agenda of the meeting.
It added that the trade consultation with the US will take place during the 2025 Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund, which will be held from Monday to Saturday in Washington. Despite the unconfirmed timeline, they are expected to conduct the discussions between Thursday and Friday.
Earlier in the day, Trade Minister Ahn said on a live TV program on local broadcaster KBS that instead of rushing the talks to strike a deal, Korea plans to carry out discussions so they can work things out in a way that can favor both sides.
“We are carefully approaching (the high-level trade discussions),” said Ahn. “We plan to carry out an all-out strategy to remove the tariffs on our strong US-bound exports such as cars and semiconductors…"
However, he added, "The Trump administration’s tariff policy is not finished and tariff issues are likely to continue throughout the Trump administration, so it is important to keep the frame of negotiations going because the situation will not be resolved even if we are able to work through everything now."
Asked whether President Donald Trump could show up to the talks like he did with the Japanese delegates, Ahn said the Korean side is keeping that in mind and preparing for that as a possible scenario.
As the US raised the issue of defense cost-sharing with Japan, Ahn said that although Washington has not mentioned anything related to that end, in the event that it does, Korea plans to relay the US' stance to the relevant authorities, which will respond accordingly.
hwkan@heraldcorp.com
