For over half a century, exports, especially of advanced products, have been a core driver of the Korean economic engine, and the U.S. market was a key destination for those exports.
However, with his “Liberation Day” tariffs, U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to change all that. Even with the recent U.S. court decision limiting Trump’s ability to impose tariffs, Korea is not yet out of the woods. The administration can still impose tariffs using Sections 232 and 301 and will almost surely go down this path.
So, why is Trump doing this and how should Korea respond?
As Rob Atkinson writes in The Korea Times, for Trump, it’s a new world and Korean President Lee Jae Myung and his administration needs to treat it as such and negotiate a new deal that preserves Korean market access to America by making real concessions on what at the end of the day are relatively minor things for Korean economic competitiveness.
Read the column.
