SEOUL, October 16 (AJP) - South Korean and U.S. officials signaled that a settlement may be near in their three-month-long trade negotiations linked to Seoul’s $350 billion investment pledge and a potential tariff cut, with an agreement possibly coming before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Gyeongju later this month.
“We are about to finish up with Korea,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters on Wednesday, referring to the ongoing talks with senior Seoul officials in Washington. “The devil’s in the details, but we are ironing them out. I’m sure the differences can be resolved. We are in discussions now, and I would expect something in the next 10 days.”
Asked whether the Treasury supports a currency swap facility that Seoul has requested to prevent volatility from the massive capital outflow tied to its investment pledge, Bessent replied, “If I were the Federal Reserve chair — and I’m not — Korea would already have a currency swap facility.”
His counterpart, Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol, who arrived in Washington for the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting and the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, told Korean reporters separately that the talks are progressing “at a rapid pace.”
Koo is joined by Presidential Policy Chief Kim Yong-beom, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan, and Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo, forming a full economic team dispatched to Washington to expedite the settlement. The prolonged delay has unsettled Korea’s foreign exchange market and weighed on exports across key sectors — from automobiles to food products.
Seoul has been pushing for the tariff rate on its exports to be reduced to 15 percent from the current 25 percent, in exchange for the massive investment package, which represents nearly 80 percent of the nation’s foreign exchange reserves.
* This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP.
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