Clark Packard
U.S. President Donald Trump has again made aggressive tariff threats to a long-standing ally with strong economic ties to the United States. This time, he announced on social media that he would raise tariffs on a wide range of South Korean products to 25 percent—up from the 15 percent tariffs currently imposed under the administration’s novel use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The president’s justification, this time, was that the South Korean National Assembly has not yet ratified the framework the two governments announced last summer.
That Seoul will likely move quickly to pass implementing legislation misses the point. This episode is simply the latest illustration of the uncertainty-driven, ad hoc trade policy that has defined the Trump administration. This episode comes on the heels of the administration’s raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia last fall, where federal agents detained hundreds of South Korean employees who were in the country to help build an electric vehicle battery plant co-owned by Hyundai and LG—the kind of investment the administration claims it wants. Is it any wonder U.S. allies are learning that America’s trade commitments are temporary, reversible, and unsafe to rely on—and increasingly looking elsewhere as a backup policy?
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