Trump may end US-S. Korea FTA
US President Donald Trump will discuss the fate of the US-South Korean free trade deal with his advisers next week in a move that could see him pull out of the accord.
houston — US President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would discuss the fate of a five-year-old US-South Korean free trade deal with his advisers next week in a move that could see him pull out of the accord with a key US ally at a time of heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Trump made his remarks to reporters while visiting hurricane-hit Houston a day after he spoke with South Korean President Moon Jaein and struck a deal allowing Seoul access to longer-range missiles and a potential arms sale to Seoul.
The US-Korea Free Trade Agreement (Korus), hammered out by Trump’s Democratic predecessor Barack Obama, has been a frequent target for Trump, who in earlier interviews with Reuters threatened to withdraw from what he called an unequal deal in which Washington runs a trade deficit of almost $28 billion with Seoul.
“It is very much on my mind,” Trump said in Houston when asked whether he would be talking about the accord next week.
As Trump considers giving notice to South Korea of US withdrawal from the pact, he faces a potential divide among his advisers. The Washington Post reported earlier that any withdrawal was opposed by his national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.
Trump’s comments on Saturday came amid a standoff over North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests. North Korea sharply raised regional tension this week with the launch of its Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile, which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific.
Washington wants to change the South Korea deal to help cut its trade deficit with Asia’s fourthlargest economy.
South Korean and US officials began talks about possible revisions to the agreement on August 22 but failed to agree on how to move forward. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, South Korean Trade Minister Kim Hyunchong and the trade pact’s joint steering committee participated in a one-day videoconference that ended without a decision on the next steps for possible revisions.
The pact was initially negotiated by the Republican administration of President George W. Bush in 2007, but that version was scrapped and renegotiated by Obama’s administration three years later.
Trump has blamed the accord on his 2016 Democratic presidential election opponent, Hillary Clinton, who as Obama’s secretary of state promoted the final version of the agreement before its approval by the US Congress in 2011.
Pulling out of Korus would mark the latest step taken by Trump to abandon the type of international trade agreement that had exemplified world economics for decades. — Reuters