{"id":1002407,"date":"2018-09-24T19:10:15","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T19:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1002407"},"modified":"2024-05-23T20:16:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T20:16:08","slug":"trumps-south-korea-trade-deal-falls-short-of-his-promises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/trumps-south-korea-trade-deal-falls-short-of-his-promises\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s South Korea Trade Deal Falls Short Of His Promises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trump previously promised to terminate <\/a>the South Korea trade deal if South Korea failed to make major concessions. But major concessions did not happen. Instead, the trade agreement Trump reached with South Korea fell short of his demands, includes only \u201cmodest\u201d concessions from South Korea and leaves many major trade issues unaddressed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s concessions to the U.S. were \u201cmodest\u201d and did not address several major trade issues.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Los Angeles Times<\/a>: \u201cThe new amendments to the trade deal will mark modest concessions by a trading partner that is a relatively small player behind the European Union, China and Canada.\u00a0 The amendments do not directly address some major trade issues between the two countries, including agriculture.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN Money<\/a>: \u201cSome economists have suggested the new deal isn\u2019t significantly different from the old one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/a>: \u201cThe changes negotiated by the Trump administration were mostly cosmetic, said Wendy Cutler, who served as chief U.S. negotiator of the original deal with South Korea. \u00a0\u2018It just underscores how modest the improvements are,\u2019 Cutler said by phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts said South Korea emerged from the talks \u201cunscathed and the deal was \u201calmost too good to be true\u201d for the country.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asia Economist Krystal Tan<\/a>: \u201cDespite Trump\u2019s threats, South Korea appears to have emerged from the talks \u2018unscathed,\u2019 said Krystal Tan, an Asia economist at research firm Capital Economics. \u00a0\u2018The concessions that Korea has agreed to will have a very small impact on its economy,\u2019 she wrote in a note to clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seoul National University Professor Ahn Duk-geun<\/a>: \u201cThe deal has many in South Korea breathing a sigh of relief. The concessions made by Seoul were \u2018modest,\u2019 said Ahn Duk-geun, a Seoul National University professor of international studies and an international trade expert. \u2018It\u2019s almost too good to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wall Street Journal<\/a>: \u201cThe deal has many in South Korea breathing a sigh of relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Korea\u2019s primary concessions on U.S. auto imports and Korean truck exports won\u2019t have any substantive effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Forbes<\/a>: \u201cThe Korean deal, struck in the spring of this year, is really a minor reworking of the original Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). The new pact did remarkably little. It turned U.S. steel tariffs into a \u2018voluntary export restraint\u2019 quota by the Koreans, thereby ensuring that the United States would not get tariff revenue while it endured higher domestic steel prices. It made the Koreans promise not to ship pickup trucks to the United States for years to come (they were not currently shipping any). And it expanded the limit for the number of U.S. cars to enter Korea that did not precisely meet Korean standards (no auto manufacturer was even at the old limit).\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration failed to secure concessions on agriculture market access in trade negotiations with South Korea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yonhap News Agency<\/a>: \u201cWhile Washington called for further opening of the agriculture and livestock market, Seoul refused to make changes to the sector that has suffered massive damage due to cheaper U.S. food products since implementation of the trade pact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The South Korea trade deal falls short of Trump\u2019s promises:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump promised to reduce the trade deficit with South Korea, but the agreement is unlikely to have a tangible impact on the trade balance with cars, which accounts for most of the U.S. trade deficit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump<\/a>: \u201cThe Trump administration initiated talks to renegotiate the United States-Korea (Korus) trade agreement in July last year, arguing it was lopsided because American\u2019s bilateral trade deficit had ballooned under it. \u00a0\u2018We have a very, very bad trade deal with Korea,\u2019 Trump said. \u2018For us it produced nothing but losses.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/a>: \u201cSeoul has agreed to double to 50,000 the number of cars each U.S. automaker can sell in the Asian nation without meeting local safety standards, said the officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. However, it\u2019s not clear how the higher cap will immediately benefit American manufacturers, given that sales by American automakers currently fall well short of the new limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington Post<\/a>: \u201cSouth Korea enjoyed an $18 billion trade surplus with the United States last year, although that was down from $23 billion in 2016, according to South Korean government figures. Cars account for more than 70 percent of the surplus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump promised to stop countries from manipulating currency, but the currency agreement with South Korea was \u201cmainly symbolic\u201d and \u201cnot enforceable.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump<\/a>: \u201cAny country that devalues their currency in order to take unfair advantage of the United States and all of its companies who can\u2019t compete will face tariffs and taxes to stop the cheating. When they see that, they will stop the cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN Money<\/a>: \u201cBut the devil is in the detail. The currency provision is not actually in the official agreement and has no enforcement mechanism. Including it in the text of the deal would have required a lengthy legislative approval process, a path that administration officials indicated they did not want to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump promised to tax South Korean television imports and stop their \u201cdumping\u201d, but the trade deal revisions did nothing to address it .<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump<\/a>: \u201cBut with cars, with television sets, with things like that, where they\u2019re dumping them on us \u2014 we don\u2019t make television sets anymore in this country.\u00a0 They come from South Korea, and they come from, to a lesser extent, Japan. Most of them come from South Korea. It\u2019s not fair. And I believe that we should have reciprocal taxes on that, likewise.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN Money<\/a>: \u00a0\u201cSouth Korean exporters will be relieved that none of the tariffs that were lifted under the original agreement have been brought back, according to Krystal Tan, an economist at research firm Capital Economics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump previously promised to terminate the South Korea trade deal if South Korea failed to make major concessions. But major concessions did not happen. Instead, the trade agreement Trump reached with South Korea fell short of his demands, includes only \u201cmodest\u201d concessions from South Korea and leaves many major trade issues unaddressed.   South Korea\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s South Korea Trade Deal Falls Short Of His Promises - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/trumps-south-korea-trade-deal-falls-short-of-his-promises\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-24T19:10:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-23T20:16:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Claire DePree\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/trumps-south-korea-trade-deal-falls-short-of-his-promises\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/trumps-south-korea-trade-deal-falls-short-of-his-promises\/\",\"name\":\"Trump\u2019s South Korea Trade Deal Falls Short Of His Promises - 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