Trump says he'll meet S. Korean trade delegation with 'offer to buy down' tariffs
Trump made the remarks in a social media post as South Korean negotiators are striving to reach a trade deal with his administration before Friday, when the steep reciprocal tariffs are set to take effect unless an agreement is reached.
"I will be meeting with the South Korean Trade Delegation this afternoon," he wrote on Truth Social. "South Korea is right now at a 25% Tariff, but they have an offer to buy down those Tariffs. I will be interested in hearing what that offer is."
In hopes of finding a breakthrough, Seoul officials have proposed a large-scale investment initiative, dubbed "Make American Shipbuilding Great Again," as the Trump administration seeks to rebuild America's shipbuilding industry in the face of China's overwhelming shipbuilding capacity.
South Korea's Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol, Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan and Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo are currently in Washington.
They have held rounds of talks with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick this week, while Koo and Yeo are scheduled to meet Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Thursday. (Yonhap)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Korea Herald
21 minutes ago
- Korea Herald
Trump threatens takeover of Washington to fight crime
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested he may use the National Guard to police the streets of Washington in his latest threat to take over running the city that serves as the seat of the US government. "We have a capital that's very unsafe," Trump told reporters at the White House. "We have to run DC. This has to be the best-run place in the country." Trump, who has threatened a federal takeover of the city multiple times, renewed those threats after a young staffer who was part of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency was assaulted over the weekend. Musk , the billionaire former adviser to Trump who once spearheaded the DOGE effort, said the man was beaten and received a concussion. "It is time to federalize DC," he wrote. Asked if he was considering taking over the Washington police, Trump responded affirmatively. "We just almost lost a young man, beautiful handsome guy that got the hell knocked out of him," Trump said. The president posted a picture of the victim, Edward Coristine, known by the nickname "Big Balls," on social media, with blood on his face, arms, torso and legs. "We're going to beautify the city. We're going to make it beautiful. And what a shame, the rate of crime, the rate of muggings, killings and everything else. We're not going to let it. And that includes bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly, too," Trump said. A spokesperson for Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser declined to comment. Violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 was down by 26 percent in Washington compared to last year while overall crime was down about 7 percent, according to records on the police department's website. Overall crime was down 15 percent in 2024, compared to 2023, the website showed. The District of Columbia was established in 1790 with land from neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Congress has control of its budget, but resident voters elect a mayor and city council, thanks to a law known as the Home Rule Act. For Trump to take over the city, Congress likely would have to pass a law revoking that act, which Trump would have to sign. The president said on Wednesday that lawyers were already looking at overturning the Home Rule Act.
Korea Herald
38 minutes ago
- Korea Herald
Yoon's lawyers say ex-president injured in arrest attempt
Former president again refuses to be taken for questioning; lawyers claim attempts to detain him illegal Legal representatives of Yoon Suk Yeol claimed Thursday that the former South Korean leader was injured by what they assess as an "illegal" bid to enforce an arrest warrant for him regarding the ongoing criminal investigation into his wife Kim Keon Hee. Hours after the prosecution's second attempt to detain Yoon was thwarted Thursday morning, Yoon's lawyers said at a press conference that 10 officials of the special counsel team tried to forcibly get him into a car by lifting the chair that he was sitting on. They say that Yoon fell on the floor during the process and was injured. "There have been several cases in which a suspect, against whom an arrest warrant had been issued, refuses investigation, but there had not been one case in which (the enforcement of warrant) was conducted via physically dragging a person," the lawyers said in a press conference in front of the Seoul High Court. Yoon's side has maintained that the attempt to forcibly detain him was illegal, even though the court has issued a warrant for his official arrest. They claimed it was a deliberate attempt by the prosecution to humiliate the former leader. The former South Korean president has been refusing to cooperate with the ongoing criminal investigation, and the special counsel team said Thursday it had decided not to arrest Yoon due to adamant resistance from the suspect. It was the second failed attempt to arrest Yoon by the special counsel team looking into Kim. Yoon has been held at the Seoul Detention Center in relation to the ongoing investigation of the Dec. 3, 2024, imposition of martial law for the last month. He was impeached and removed as president and faces charges of insurrection and power abuse. He has been refusing to comply with the related probe and trials since being detained last month. Yoon has been summoned by the prosecution to give testimony related to accusations related to the Kim Keon Hee case, including accusations that he received illegal help in his campaign from a local pollster in exchange for helping a former member of his People Power Party secure a nomination in the parliamentary election. Due to Yoon's repeated refusal to cooperate with the ongoing investigation concerning his wife, officials undertook measures to forcibly bring him into custody. A 2013 Supreme Court precedent shows that suspects who refuse orders to cooperate with an investigation can be forcibly taken in for the probe. But footnotes attached to the Criminal Procedure Act published in 2022 state that if the suspect is in a state of undress for the purpose of refusing an investigation, he or she cannot be forced into custody. This is widely presumed to be the reason why Yoon was lying on the floor in only his underwear as he refused officers trying to take him into custody.
Korea Herald
38 minutes ago
- Korea Herald
North Korean swims across border to defect to South
A North Korean man was discovered by South Korean troops in neutral waters in the Han River estuary on the west coast, last week, the South's military said Thursday. Swimming across the maritime border to arrive in the South, the man expressed his intention to defect to the South, according to a Joint Chiefs of Staff official, requesting anonymity. 'Our military was able to secure a North Korean citizen and (his) identity in the neutral waters of the Han River at the early hours of July 31, before handing him over to related agencies,' the JCS said later in a statement. The Navy first spotted the man with makeshift floating materials attached to his body in neutral waters off the Incheon island of Gyodongdo on the night of July 30, according to the JCS official and sources close to the matter. The soldiers remained alert and monitored the man for the next 10 hours before deciding to rescue him from waters 11 meters deep at around 4 a.m. the next day. The North Korean man reportedly waved while asking troops to rescue him. A warrant officer introduced himself as representing the South Korean Navy and asked the North Korean if he was defecting to the South. Details of the rescue operation were shared with the United Nations Command. Any unusual signs involving North Korean troops were not detected at the time of the operation, the JCS said. A Unification Ministry official, declining to be named, said that related government agencies are carrying out a joint investigation. It is difficult to share the exact details at the moment due to the ongoing investigations, it explained. This marks the second time that a North Korean has crossed the border to defect to the South since President Lee Jae Myung took office in early June. On July 3, a North Korean man crossed a midwestern portion of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas and later confirmed his wish to defect to the South. North Korean defectors are legally entitled to government support to resettle in South Korea, with the Constitution recognizing the entire Korean Peninsula as its territory and all Koreans as its nationals. The two Koreas technically remain at war, as the 1950-53 Korean War ended with a truce, not a formal peace treaty.
