[Editorial] Korea should not be rattled by Trump’s renewed tariff threats

Lim Lee-ja, the chairperson of the Nationwide Meeting’s Finance, Financial system, Planning and Finances Committee, discusses responses to US President Donald Trump’s point out of elevating tariffs on Korean items with Finance and Financial system Minister Koo Yun-cheol on the committee’s workplace in Seoul on Jan. 27, 2026. (Yonhap)

US President Donald Trump has unexpectedly threatened to lift tariffs on Korean merchandise, which might upend the tariff deal painstakingly negotiated by the 2 international locations.

“As a result of the Korean Legislature hasn’t enacted our Historic Commerce Settlement, which is their prerogative,” Trump wrote on Fact Social on Tuesday, “I’m hereby rising South Korean TARIFFS on Autos, Lumber, Pharma, and all different Reciprocal TARIFFS, from 15% to 25%.”

Within the submit, Trump didn’t specify when the upper tariffs would take impact.

On the finish of months of negotiations final 12 months, the US agreed to decrease tariffs on Korean-made cars to fifteen% on the situation that Korea make investments US$350 billion within the US. After associated laws was submitted to Korea’s Nationwide Meeting on Nov. 26, the US lowered vehicle tariffs retroactively, with the decrease tariffs taking impact retroactively from Nov. 1.

The invoice particulars the authorized and institutional devices wanted to implement the US funding bundle, which incorporates organising a Korea-US strategic funding fund. However the act is presently held up within the Nationwide Meeting.

If Trump’s remarks are taken at face worth, he appears to be objecting to the truth that the invoice has not been handed by the Nationwide Meeting.

However the bilateral settlement didn’t specify when the invoice needed to be handed, and it was solely submitted to the Nationwide Meeting two months in the past.

Being {that a} US$350 billion funding bundle would place an incredible fiscal pressure on Korea and have a huge effect on its international alternate market, the invoice must be rigorously reviewed within the Nationwide Meeting.

The invoice is present process the usual assessment, and the Nationwide Meeting hasn’t voiced any objections to the negotiated deal. Underneath these circumstances, throwing over the settlement with none prior notification is, diplomatically talking, a baffling transfer.

Whereas Trump is well-known for his unilateral and unpredictable negotiating model, Koreans can’t assist questioning how for much longer we’ll need to put up with such discourtesy.

However such a scenario calls for a very measured response from the Korean authorities. The primary order of enterprise is to find out the precise motivations and intentions of Trump’s remarks.

Does Trump merely need to make sure the funding will not be delayed as a result of the Nationwide Meeting is taking its time? Or is he motivated by frustration with Korea’s laws about info and communications networks, its regulation of on-line platforms, or its investigation into the leak of buyer knowledge at Coupang, as some have speculated?

Korea’s motion plan will rely upon the reply to that query.

Whereas the Nationwide Meeting must totally assessment the content material of the laws, it should most likely must streamline that course of the place potential to keep away from giving the US any pretext for additional mischief.

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