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South Korean firms worry that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment following a failed try and impose martial regulation this month has undermined efforts to foyer Donald Trump’s incoming administration to guard their exports and investments within the US.
The US president-elect has threatened to impose sweeping tariffs and evaluate beneficiant subsidies for firms to put money into the US, together with these for America’s allies and largest buying and selling companions.
However current political turmoil in Seoul has left the marketing campaign to counter Trump’s commerce protectionism rudderless, in keeping with a number of individuals concerned within the lobbying effort who described the South Korean authorities’s diplomatic efforts as “paralysed” and “absent” within the wake of Yoon’s aborted energy seize.
“There is no one from the government to represent the Korean interest just when we need it the most,” stated an individual representing a conglomerate that invested billions of {dollars} within the US throughout outgoing President Joe Biden’s time period.
“It is not possible for us to withdraw our investments now,” the particular person added. “We are like in a hostage situation.”
Trump-related dangers for South Korea’s export-reliant economic system vary from across-the-board import tariffs to the potential revocation of subsidies for Korean chip, battery and electric-vehicle makers promised by Biden. The Korean semiconductor business can also be uncovered to extra aggressive US export controls on China.
The specter of commerce disruption additionally comes at a time when Asia’s fourth-largest economic system is already wrestling with weak home demand, hovering non-public borrowing and intensifying competitors from Chinese language exporters.
On Wednesday, South Korea’s international minister Cho Tae-yul acknowledged that the political turmoil had disrupted diplomatic efforts, including: “We are fully committed to regaining that momentum as quickly as possible.”
Yeo Han-koo, a former South Korean commerce minister now on the Peterson Institute for Worldwide Economics in Washington, stated that even earlier than the political disaster, “the feeling in Seoul could be described as anxiety bordering on panic”.
Korean policymakers and enterprise leaders have been “traumatised” by Trump’s first time period, stated Yeo, when the US president threatened to cancel a bilateral free commerce settlement and take away American navy forces from the Korean peninsula except Seoul contributed extra to their maintenance.
A survey of 239 firms launched by the Korea Enterprises Federation this month discovered 82 per cent anticipated South Korea’s economic system could be harmed by Trump’s anticipated protectionist insurance policies.
However Yeo instructed that some Korean fears have been “overblown”, arguing that “much has changed” since Trump was first elected in 2016. South Korea was the largest supply of international direct funding within the US final yr, with firms investing tens of billions of {dollars} in US manufacturing amenities for chips and inexperienced applied sciences.
“More than perhaps any other country, South Korea can argue it is contributing to a revival in US manufacturing, and that it deserves a place within the walls of Fortress USA,” Yeo stated.
South Korea’s commerce surplus with the US was $28.7bn within the first half of 2024, in keeping with the Korea Worldwide Commerce Organisation, and is ready to overhaul final yr’s report of $44.4bn, elevating issues that Trump, who’s delicate to US commerce deficits, may goal the nation once more.
Nevertheless, an government from certainly one of South Korea’s main business associations stated that current conversations with individuals anticipated to serve in Trump’s administration instructed that present investments would do little to sway the incoming president and his internal circle.
“We tried to appeal to them by stressing the fact that Korea was the biggest foreign investor and created lots of jobs,” the chief stated. “But we were told that it doesn’t matter for Trump as he is more interested in what the Korean companies will do from now on. He doesn’t want to hear what they did during the Biden administration.”
One other particular person aware of the Korean lobbying effort stated one “specific concern” was the return of Peter Navarro, Trump’s former commerce envoy, as a senior financial adviser.
Trump this month praised Navarro, who beforehand accused Korean conglomerates Samsung and LG of “trade cheating” by relocating manufacturing to keep away from antidumping measures, for serving to renegotiate “unfair Trade Deals like Nafta and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement”.
Analysts stated Korean firms have been unlikely to take care of their scale of funding given the challenges they have been already dealing with, starting from excessive prices of building, labour and childcare to a scarcity of expert labour, difficulties securing visas and dependable energy provide. A weak South Korean gained and lagging demand for EVs have been additionally dampening enthusiasm.
Lee Tae-kyu, senior fellow on the Korea Financial Analysis Institute (KERI), stated South Korea’s economic system may obtain a modest increase if Trump’s tariffs targeted narrowly on Chinese language exports, pointing to shipbuilding, defence and petrochemicals as areas the place Korean firms stood to learn.
Seoul may additionally cut back its commerce surplus by shopping for extra American arms and fossil fuels, Lee added.
However Korean battery and EV makers may face a nightmare situation if Trump have been to achieve a grand discount with Beijing on commerce that allowed Chinese language rivals to arrange their very own crops within the US — one thing the incoming president has stated he would contemplate.
“If Chinese companies are allowed to build plants in the US, that will be a disaster for us,” stated a Korean battery business government. “But even our government officials don’t seem to know who to talk to in Washington to deliver our concerns.”
