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South Korean and Japanese officials are going to their political smile and Washington. Chief talks minister for Japan Akajawa Ryosi visited the White House on 16 April and donated a Maga cap. A week later, South Korea’s finance and trade ministers met their American counterparts. Negotiations with both countries will continue this week.
South Korea’s work is harder than political upheaval. Mr. Han, a light-heartedly unrelated technocrate, was emphasizing the presidency and was forced to lead the country through a significant turn after his boss, Yun Suk Yeol, was impeached to declare the martial law in the last December. A fresh presidential election is scheduled to be held on 3 June. Left-wing opposition leader Lee J-Mung is expected to win. Some conservatives would like to run Shri Han; He refuses to answer questions about his election plans. Meanwhile, he should try to reduce disaster with America. He projected to calm down in an interview in Seoul on 22 April. South Korea is sure that any problem can be solved in “a non-contact manner”, they say.
Nevertheless, he has no confusion about bets. Mr. Trump has threatened to withdraw some US soldiers from South Korea in the past. This will leave it more unsafe for dangers from North Korea. The presence of American forces “is perfectly important to us”, Sri Han says. To prevent its autocratic, nuclear-cosmetics neighbor, South Korea also depends on the US nuclear umbrella. No one is sure that Mr. Trump intends to consider achieving his own atomic preventive to preserve it or tolerate it, to destabilize the region and create an incentive to South Korea and even Japan. “So we should continue working with America and put on a brave face, whether it is in the White House,” says the former South Korean Ambassador to America.
While not an essential (but rapid incredible) collaborative, South Korea and Japan are trying to limit tariff trauma. Both are trade-oriented economies that export loads to the US. Mr. Trump has imposed 25% “sectoral” tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles, which came into force in March and April. They have also announced-and then have been suspended for 90 days-all Korean goods and 24% on Japanese people. Their tariffs on other countries, such as China, Japan and South Korea, will interrupt their supply chains. Mr. Han talks about tariffs as “shock therapy”; Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru says he has caused the “national crisis”.
Economic pain for both South Korea and Japan can be more serious than most countries. On 22 April, the IMF cut South Korea’s development forecast to 1% for this year, below 2% forecast in January; Japan’s growth forecast fell 0.5 percent points. (The forecast of global development decreased by 0.5 per cent.) If the US imposed a universal 25% tariff on all goods, it would reduce South Korea’s GDP by 0.8 per cent, standard chartered, a bank’s park Chong Hoon; The Nomura Research Institute, a Japanese think-tank, also predicts a 0.8 percent decrease of Japanese GDP if all the tariffs of Sri Trump live in place.
The car and the steel tariff have already caused serious damage. “It is very painful,” Sri Han accepts. And uncertainty about what Mr. Trump will do next is equally worrying. Investors and consumers are stopping spending until the picture is clear. Through the first 20 days of April, South Korea’s exports shrunk 5% compared to the same period last year; American people fell 14%.
Getting a reprive will not be easy. Old business rules are no longer applicable. The two countries have trade agreements with the US, which appear to be violating the new tariffs of Mr. Trump, but nothing will change from this. Mr. Trump’s “mutual” tariffs are based on the fact that South Korea charges 50% effective tariffs on American goods; The South Korean government said that under the United States-Corea Free Trade Agreement, which came into force in 2012, the average tariff rate on imports from the US is less than 1%. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump adds complexity to talk about everything at once. For talks, Japan’s Inter -Government Task Force has balloons to include 47 senior officials from a host of various ministries and agencies.
Both South Korea and Japan are expected to offer the package that will appeal to Mr. Trump’s ego at a reasonable cost. South Korean East-official says, “We have to make a deal in such a way that Trump can be boasted.” Thoughts on the table include buying more goods from the US to reduce their trade deficit and promote attractive investment. Mr. Han highlighted a proposed project to create a liquery plant to allow a 1,300 km gas pipeline in Alaska and a liquidity plant to allow gas exports to Asia, which could realize South Korean and Japanese firms. South Korea is also offering to help revives the US -dominated ship -making industry of America.
The talks must address the determination of Mr. Trump on non-tariff barriers, such as car-protection standards, quota and quota for farm products for technical firms. Some of Mr. Trump’s hold is real and can be dealt with. “We have some points on which some improvements can be done,” says Mr. Han. For example, Google Maps, is the restriction due to the ban on exporting high-accurate map data into South Korea.
Nevertheless, what the negotiaters can achieve, it has limitations. South Korea and Japan can buy more American oil and weapons, but they cannot eliminate their business surplus with Uncle Sam. Reducing trade surplus will give up East Asian firms with less money to invest in new factories in the US. Several complaints of Mr. Trump about non-tariff barriers, such as a Japanese car-protection test, contains a story a bowling ball, are baseless.
Industrial cooperation faces major obstacles. South Korea has a lot of ship -making expertise to share, but shipbuilding requires a lot of steel (which makes Mr. Trump’s tariffs more expensive) and a web of suppliers and efficient labor (which is deficient in America). The firms will lie to invest in transferring their supply chains without certainty, which is none. In addition, to cooperate on shipbuilding work, the US should “change” its legal structure that controls the industry. He is very humble to add that American ship manufacturing is largely disabled because it is one of the most protected industries in the country.
The main opposition of South Korea, the Democratic Party (DP), is reducing Mr. Han with a specific allegation that it is only ending his authority by starting a business talks during the acting President. However, a DP president will probably pursue the same goals after the election in June: tariff relief and continuity of safety guarantee. The two sides may try to remove some long -demanded concessions, such as to move forward for South Korea or to make nuclear power more efficient, to reproduce or enrich nuclear fuels. (This will take time to manufacture nuclear weapons.)
Meanwhile, voters in both South Korea and Japan are closely looking at how their leaders handle the bullying of Shri Trump. In Japan, where the upper-house election loom in July, Mr. Ishiba has been criticized for being very soft. And Oguma Shinji, an opposition legalist, said what other people said privately: Talking with the Trump administration is like treating “a teenage criminal out of money”.
© 2025, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under license. The original material can be found on www.economist.com
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