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31-03-2025
SEOUL: South Korea, China and Japan held their first economic dialogue in five years on Sunday, seeking to facilitate regional trade as the three Asian export powers brace from US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The countries’ three trade ministers agreed to “closely cooperate for a comprehensive and high-level” talks on a South Korea-Japan-China free trade agreement deal to promote “regional and global trade”, according to a statement released after the meeting.
“It is necessary to strengthen the implementation of RCEP, in which all three countries have participated, and to create a framework for expanding trade cooperation among the three countries through Korea-China-Japan FTA negotiations,” said South Korean Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun, referring to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The ministers met ahead of Trump’s announcement on Wednesday of more tariffs in what he calls “liberation day”, as he upends Washington’s trading partnerships.
Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo are major US major trading partners, although they have been at loggerheads among themselves over issues including territorial disputes and Japan’s release of wastewater from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant.
They have not made substantial progress on a trilateral free-trade deal since starting talks in 2012.
RCEP, which went into force in 2022, is a trade framework among 15 Asia-Pacific countries aimed at lowering trade barriers.
Trump announced 25% import tariffs on cars and auto parts last week, a move that may hurt companies, especially Asian automakers, which are among the largest vehicle exporters to the US.
After Mexico, South Korea is the world’s largest exporter of vehicles to the United States, followed by Japan, according to data from S&P.
The ministers agreed to hold their next ministerial meeting in Japan.
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced 25% tariffs on auto and auto parts after concluding that automotive imports continue to threaten the country’s industrial base and national security.
Trump’s proclamation argued that those threats, first identified during an investigation concluded in February 2019 during his first term in office were still relevant and had in fact escalated after the COVID pandemic.
Negotiations and trade agreements with South Korea and Canada and Mexico had not shifted the balance of trade sufficiently, and foreign automotive industries had grown substantially, bolstered by “unfair subsidies and aggressive industrial policies,” Trump said in his proclamation.
“Today, only about half of the vehicles sold in the United States are manufactured domestically, a decline that jeopardizes our domestic industrial base and national security,” the proclamation said. It noted that the US share of global auto production had remained stagnant since the 2019 report, and that US jobs in the industry had also not increased.
Americans bought about 16 million cars, sport utility vehicles and light trucks in 2024, and about half were imported, with the average domestic content of the other half estimated to reach 40% to 50%, the White House said in a fact sheet.
Trump has long promised higher duties on imported cars, a frequent theme in his remarks. The tariffs are due to take effect on April 3, a day after his separate, April 2 plans for reciprocal tariffs aimed at the countries responsible for the bulk of the US trade deficit. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
