"Investment in the U.S. Reaches 20% of Korea's GDP"
"Too Early to Celebrate"
The People Power Party evaluated the conclusion of the South Korea-U.S. tariff negotiations on the 31st, stating, "Applying the same tariff rates as Japan and the European Union (EU), whose economies are larger than ours, is essentially equivalent to a negotiation failure."
Chief Spokesperson Park Sunghoon said in a commentary on this day, "If we were to be treated equally with Japan and the EU, we should have insisted on a tariff rate of 12.5% or lower," expressing this view.
On this day, South Korea and the United States reached a trade agreement under which the U.S. will lower its reciprocal tariff on South Korea from 25% to 15%, and South Korea will invest $350 billion in the U.S., among other conditions.
Chief Spokesperson Park stated, "While we have maintained a 0% tariff rate on most export items such as automobiles under the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Japan and the EU have so far been subject to tariffs of nearly 1?10% depending on the item. Even for automobiles, which are our main export product, Japan and the EU have been subject to a 2.5% tariff rate, so the new 15% tariff agreement has only raised it by 12.5%."
He also assessed that the scale of investment in the U.S. is excessively high, considering the economic size of each country.
Chief Spokesperson Park analyzed, "The scale of investment in the U.S. is close to 20.4% of our gross domestic product (GDP)," adding, "For Japan and the EU, the figures are only 13.1% and 6.9%, respectively." He evaluated that applying the same tariff rates as Japan and the EU, whose economies are 2.5 times and 11 times larger respectively, is essentially equivalent to a negotiation failure.
He further pointed out that the government failed to use security-related agreements as leverage in the negotiations.
Chief Spokesperson Park said, "Although the government initially announced it would pursue a 'package deal' by linking the tariff negotiations to security issues, it failed to use this as leverage in the negotiations," and warned, "On the contrary, at the South Korea-U.S. summit, we may receive a substantial 'security bill' from the U.S., including issues such as the reduction of U.S. Forces Korea and the defense cost-sharing burden."
He continued, "If the government thinks it has 'done well' simply because reciprocal tariffs have been lowered compared to before, it is exposing its ignorance of trade," and criticized, "The Lee Jaemyung administration must thoroughly review the ongoing negotiations before celebrating prematurely."
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