Trump agrees with South Korea on $350 billion in investment and shipbuilding

President Donald Trump announced this Thursday that he had reached a trade agreement with South Korea, in an agreement that will benefit the United States with over 350 billion dollars in investments and will reduce the advantages of Korean automobile manufacturers in the U.S. market.

This way, South Korea accepts a 15% tariff on its goods entering U.S. soil, compared to the 25% rate that would have been applied if the two countries had not reached a trade agreement before August 1, the deadline imposed by Trump.

Trump also agreed to meet at a summit to discuss the provisions of the agreement with the newly elected South Korean president Lee Jae-myung, a left-wing politician who took office in June and who has no experience in foreign policy.

 

Trump comments on the agreement.

The president celebrated this agreement on Truth Social, where he also announced plans to meet with his South Korean counterpart and congratulated him on his electoral victory last June.

"The agreement is that South Korea will give the United States 350 billion dollars in investments that will be owned and controlled by the United States, and selected by me, as president," Trump detailed.

"Additionally, South Korea will spend 100 billion dollars on liquefied natural gas and other energy products and, furthermore, has agreed to invest a large sum of money for its own investment purposes," he continued.

Meanwhile, while South Korea accepts a 15% tariff to bring its products into the U.S. market, Washington will be able to bring automobiles, trucks, and agricultural products—among other products—into the Asian country without paying any customs duties.

 

South Korea will help the United States build new ships.

On the Korean side, negotiators achieved their goal, as they convinced Washington to accept an agreement that doesn't require the Asian country to increase its imports of U.S. beef or rice, something that was a major point of controversy during the negotiations.

From the very beginning, the Asian delegation knew that the benefit they had signed with Obama at the White House in 2016, which allowed South Korea to import automobiles without paying tariffs, was going to be reversed by Trump and a new trade reality had to be negotiated.

Such was the desperation that South Koreans had that President Koo arrived in Washington this week accompanied by Samsung executives and presented an ambitious program to help the United States drastically increase its capacity to build and maintain new ships, naming this program "MASGA" (Make American Shipbuilding Great Again).