South Korea cannot provide the US with US$350 billion in cash as suggested by Washington under a deal to lower tariffs, a senior official said.
“Our position is not a negotiating tactic,” South Korean National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said in a Channel A News television interview on Saturday evening.
“It is objectively and realistically not a level we are able to handle,” he added. “We are not able to pay US$350 billion in cash.”
Photo: Reuters
Seoul and Washington agreed in July to a US$350 billion investment pledge as part of a broader trade deal to lower US tariffs to 15 percent from 25 percent, but the two sides remain divided over how it should be structured.
South Korean officials are seeking loans and a bilateral currency swap arrangement with the US to soften the economic impact, saying that the sum represents more than 80 percent of its foreign reserves.
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has reportedly told South Korean officials that Washington prefers the investment in cash rather than loans.
US President Donald Trump recently described the contribution as “up front.”
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said earlier this month that the country’s economy could fall into crisis rivaling its 1997 meltdown if his government accepted the US demands without safeguards.
Lee told US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday in New York that the Asian country needs a foreign exchange swap to make the US$350 billion investment it has pledged in the tariff talks.
Wi on Saturday said the government is exploring alternatives and hopes for progress when the two leaders meet at the APEC Summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, next month.
Separately, the US has agreed that South Korea is not manipulating its currency for trade advantage, a spokesperson for Lee said yesterday.
The two allies agreed that Seoul does not fall under the manipulator designation that the US Department of the Treasury announces in reports twice a year, Kang Yu-jung told a news conference in Seoul.
The administration of former US president Joe Biden added South Korea to a manipulation monitoring list in November last year due to its large current account surplus and its sizable trade surplus with the US. The Trump administration kept Seoul on the list in June.
Under a 2015 US law, Washington can take “remedial action” against countries that do not “correct the undervaluation of their currency and trade surplus with the United States.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
DAMAGE REPORT: Global central banks are assessing war-driven inflation risks as the law of unintended consequences careens around the world, spiking oil prices Central banks from Washington to London and from Jakarta to Taipei are about to make their first assessments of economic damage after more than two weeks of conflict between the US and Iran. Decisions this week encompassing every member of the G7 and eight of the world’s 10 most-traded currency jurisdictions are likely to confirm to investors that the specter of a new inflation shock is already worrying enough to prompt heightened caution. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to do exactly what everyone anticipated weeks ahead of its March 17-18 policy gathering: hold rates steady. The narrative surrounding that
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
About 1,000 participants, including more than 200 venture capitalists, joined the Taiwan Demo Day in Silicon Valley on Saturday, the largest iteration to date of the event held ahead of Nvidia Corp’s annual GPU Technology Conference which runs from today to Thursday. Taiwan Demo Day, co-organized by the Taiwan Next Foundation and the Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley Hub, took place at the Computer History Museum in California, showcasing 12 teams focused on physical artificial intelligence (AI) and agentic AI technologies. Katie Hsieh (謝凱婷), founder of the Taiwan Next Foundation, said the event highlighted the strength of the Taiwan-US start-up ecosystem, with
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS