<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has said he is raising tariffs on South Korean goods including automobiles, lumber and pharmaceuticals, accusing the country of not living up to a trade deal struck last year and sending shares in Korean carmakers tumbling.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media, the US president said the tariffs paid on South Korean exports into America would rise from 15% to 25% because the \u201cKorean Legislature hasn\u2019t enacted our Historic Trade Agreement, which is their prerogative\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSouth Korea\u2019s Legislature is not living up to its Deal with the United States,\u201d Trump said. The administration has yet to issue formal notices to enact the changes.<\/p>\n
South Korea\u2019s presidential office said it had not been informed about the tariff hike plans in advance. In a statement on Tuesday, it said the trade minister, Kim Jung-kwan \u2013 currently in Canada \u2013 would head to Washington for talks on the issue with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s apparent about-face comes months after Washington and Seoul struck a trade and security deal last year<\/a>, capping a period of tense negotiations. The agreement was finalised after Trump met his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, in October<\/a>, and included investment promises by South Korea alongside tariff cuts by the US.<\/p>\n Since then, however, the deal has remained in something of a legal limbo in South Korea.<\/p>\n Seoul\u2019s presidential office insisted in November the deal did not require parliamentary approval, arguing it represented a memorandum of understanding rather than a binding legal document.<\/p>\n The finance minister, Koo Yun-cheol, said the government would ask parliament for cooperation on the matter on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Under the agreement, Washington would maintain tariffs of up to 15% on South Korean goods including vehicles, car parts and pharmaceuticals. Crucially, the deal\u2019s terms brought US tariffs on South Korean cars down from a 25% level imposed by Trump<\/a> earlier in 2025.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s latest threat, if enacted, would reverse that.<\/p>\n The auto industry accounts for 27% of South Korea\u2019s exports to the US, which takes in nearly half of the country\u2019s car exports. In the minutes after Trump\u2019s announcement, shares in several South Korean carmakers fell as much as 5%.<\/p>\n Trump has used the threat of tariffs throughout his second term as an instrument of foreign policy<\/a>. Economists have raised concerns about the approach and the policy also faces a test in an ongoing case in front of the US supreme court. Tuesday\u2019s threat targeting South Korea is his latest against key trading partners in recent days.<\/p>\n Over the weekend, Trump warned Canada that if it concluded a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100% tariff on all goods coming across the border<\/a>. Earlier in January, Trump also threatened to slap tariffs on multiple European nations<\/a> until his purchase of Greenland is achieved. He has since backed off the threat.<\/p>\n The chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council, Josh Lipsky, said Trump\u2019s action on South Korea reflected impatience with the pace of Seoul\u2019s enactment of the framework trade agreement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just another reminder that the markets were wrong to believe we were going to get into tariff stability in 2026,\u201d Lipsky said. \u201cPeople say, \u2018Oh, but he doesn\u2019t follow through,\u2019 and sometimes that\u2019s true, but sometimes it isn\u2019t. And the volatility alone \u2013 there is a price around that.\u201d<\/p>\n With Reuters and Agence France-Presse<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Trump #impose #tariffs #South #Korea #sending #shares #carmakers #tumbling #South #Korea<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald Trump has said he is ra… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}