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Trump: KORUS FTA will be scrapped if renegotiations show no progress

Trump: KORUS FTA will be scrapped if renegotiations show no progress

Posted February. 15, 2018 07:41,   

Updated February. 15, 2018 07:41

한국어

U.S. President Donald Trump criticized Tuesday (local time) U.S. trade relations with Korea and hinted that the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement could be scrapped. Though Trump has made several comments previously to withdraw from the deal, it is the first time he has mentioned it since renegotiations opened late last year.

In an open meeting with cabinet and federal commission members held at the White House for some 50 minutes, President Trump dedicated 10 minutes to criticizing Korea-U.S. trade issues. “It was a very, very bad deal. The deal is a disaster. We are negotiating, but we will scrap the deal if we don’t see any progress,” he said. Last year, Trump drew up a declaration scrapping the free trade deal but withdrew the plan due to internal opposition within the White House.

When a participant pointed out that Korean companies’ anti-dumping in steel has made a serious damage to U.S. steelmakers, Trump asked if the jobs that were impacted went to Korea. With regard to reciprocal tax, Trump said that the United States no longer manufactures TV sets and most of them come from Korea, which is not fair, adding that reciprocal tax should be imposed to Korean goods.


Jeong-Hun Park sunshade@donga.com