South Korea exports dip amid trade tensions
Agencies
South Korea's exports edged down slightly in May, dropping for the first time in four months, led by a decline in shipments to the United States and China due to global trade conflict triggered by U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs.
Exports from Asia's fourth-largest economy, an early bellwether for global trade, declined 1.3% from the same month last year to $57.27 billion, government data showed on Sunday.
The first decline since January followed rises as strong chip sales had offset downward pressure from Trump's tariff threats.
The May decline, however, was milder than the 2.7% fall forecast in a Reuters poll of economists. On a working-day adjusted basis, exports in fact rose 1.0%.
China and the United States agreed in mid-May to a 90-day truce, significantly unwinding their tariffs on each other, after months of back-and-forth retaliatory measures, but Trump on Friday accused Beijing of violating the agreement and threatened to take tougher action.
He also said he would double global tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50%.
Trump's 'reciprocal tariffs,' including 25% duties on South Korea, are on a 90Volkswagen flags 'massive' US investments and says tariff talks constructive
Volkswagen wants to make more big investments in the United States, CEO Oliver Blume said in an interview with a German newspaper on Friday, adding that tariff talks with the U.S. government were 'fair' and 'constructive'.
Several foreign companies have announced U.S. investments in response to President Donald Trump's import tariffs, but German carmakers have been more cautious about committing more resources to what is their biggest export market.Volkswagen's Audi brand, which has no production in the United States, is planning to produce some models in there, although the brand has said that the plan pre-dates the Trump administration.
'So far, we have had absolutely fair, constructive discussions,' Blume told Sueddeutsche Zeitung. 'I was in Washington myself and we have been in regular dialogue ever since.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
an hour ago
- Al Jazeera
De-escalating to escalate: Ceasefire is no longer on the horizon in Ukraine
For a while now, the Ukraine-Russia war has been compared by various pundits to the Korean War of the early 1950s. That conflict, which split the Korean Peninsula in two, ended without a clear victor. Hostilities ceased with the signing of an armistice in 1953, but no formal peace treaty ever followed. The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, suspended in an uneasy truce and still divided along the 38th parallel. Could Ukraine be heading toward a similar outcome? In many respects, today's deadlock echoes the dynamics of the Korean War. North Korea relied on support from China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was backed by a United States-led coalition. Following a series of offensives and counteroffensives, the conflict slowed down to a war of attrition, which dragged out the negotiation of a ceasefire for two years. Today, Russia, bolstered by China's backing, is fighting in Ukraine, whose army is sustained by its Western allies. In the past year, the conflict has slowed down, and the map of the front line no longer sees dramatic changes. But unlike in the Korean War, the prospects of a ceasefire here appear slim after three years of fighting. The diplomatic and pressure politics offensive by US President Donald Trump to force the two sides to put down their weapons has borne no fruit. Both sides talk about ceasefire, but act as if they want the war to continue. On Sunday, a fresh dose of fuel was poured into the fire. Ukraine launched a series of precise, destructive, and strategically painful strikes against Russian military airfields. The damage inflicted reportedly amounts to $7bn. Forty-one aircraft — about one-third of Russia's strategic bomber fleet — were hit. In parallel, two bridges collapsed in two Russian regions bordering Ukraine, derailing trains; the local authorities said they suspected sabotage. A week before that, Russia sent a swarm of more than 900 drones and dozens of missiles – killing at least 16 civilians, including three children – across Ukraine. On Monday, the Russian army sent a barrage of missiles deep into Ukrainian territory, hitting a training camp for soldiers and killing 12. The timing of these attacks appears to have been deliberately chosen. They came just ahead of the latest stage of peace talks — raising questions about whether such gestures are intended to strengthen each side's negotiating position or derail the process altogether. It is not the first time that the two sides have stepped up attacks when talks have come up. Last year, precisely as Moscow and Kyiv were about to start negotiating a partial ceasefire, Ukraine launched its incursion into Kursk. The efforts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table fell through. This time, Russia chose to downplay Sunday's explosions deep inside its territory. The Russian Defence Ministry grudgingly acknowledged that 'several units of aircraft caught fire', but made no overt threat of retaliation. Rather than lodging a formal protest, Russian delegation members proceeded to Istanbul for negotiations with their Ukrainian counterparts. On Monday, the two sides met and managed to reach agreement on two issues: a prisoner exchange of at least 1,000 soldiers each, and the possible return of 10 abducted Ukrainian children by the Russian authorities. There was no progress on a ceasefire agreement. It was clear that neither Moscow nor Kyiv was ready for serious talks. The leadership in both capitals has its reasons for avoiding the order to put down weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown, time and again, that he will not allow others to dictate terms to him; he prefers to set them himself. As the principal architect of this war, he is getting everything he wants: expanding political influence, territorial gains, and a drawn-out conflict that bolsters his image at home. He seems ready to torment Ukraine for as long as either it — or he — survives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, is not the kind of man to yield or retreat. Setting aside his courage and stubbornness, it's clear the war has given him what peace never could: enduring popularity, a steady flow of international aid, and a firm grip on power. If Ukrainians see a truce concluded with Russia as a form of capitulation, Zelensky's presidency might not last months — perhaps not even weeks. That danger weighs heavy on him. Meanwhile, the West seems willing to supply resources to continue the war effort, which is giving Kyiv more confidence. On June 3, the Ukrainian army struck the Kerch Bridge in Crimea — a structure constructed by Russia after its illegal annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. The bridge is both a symbol of Putin's imperial ambition and a strategic artery linking Russia to occupied Crimea. An attack on it is certain to provoke a response. What form that response will take, we will likely know very soon. Ukraine's gamble on Western backing has raised the stakes. The war may be entering a new, more dangerous phase: one defined not by front lines, but by symbolic attacks and overwhelming retaliation. For many ordinary Ukrainians, the fragile hope that the fighting can come to a stop has given way to a grim sense that the war will drag on for months, if not years. Among us are optimists who firmly believe that Ukraine will ultimately prevail. At the other end are pessimists who argue that defeating an enemy vastly superior in size, military power, and enormous revenues from hydrocarbon sales is simply impossible. Politics and war are not about fairness, justice, or morality. War feeds on human lives. It endures as long as leaders turn a blind eye to the suffering of their people. At present, there is no sign that the Ukrainian and Russian leaderships are ready for compromise. And that does not bode well for the ordinary Ukrainians who bear the brunt of this war. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
What's in Trump's ‘big, beautiful' budget bill?
NewsFeed What's in Trump's 'big, beautiful' budget bill? What's in Trump's 'big, beautiful' budget bill? Al Jazeera's Heidi Zhou-Castro breaks down the bill that Donald Trump claims will usher in an economic golden age, whilst others warn it could add significantly to the national debt.
Qatar Tribune
19 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Oil market braces for glut amid weak demand and rising supply
Agencies Worries over the health of the global economy amid escalating trade protectionism together with an accelerated unwind of OPEC+ output cuts pushed Brent crude to a four-year low of $60/bbl in early May – though prices have risen off their lows. Responding to the weaker economic outlook, the IEA downgraded its 2025 oil demand growth projections to a multi-year low of 740 kb/d, which, in the context of faster OPEC+ supply increases and rising non-OPEC flows, risks a supply glut over the medium term. This is the central downside risk to oil prices, signaled by weaker oil futures and a spate of downward price revisions by forecasting agencies. Providing some upside potential is the prospect of supply disruptions from more stringent US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela or a de-escalation in the global trade tariff conflict. Largely unchanged in Q1,benchmark oil prices have dropped precipitously so far in Q2, after President Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff deluge on US trading partners and OPEC+'s decision to accelerate the pace of its supply cut unwinding schedule. Brent fell to four-year lows in April, shedding 15 percent by the close of the month, the steepest monthly decline since November 2021, and then dropped further to $60.2 earlier in May. The marker has since struggled to break out of the low-to-mid-60s range, though President Trump's decision to slash tariffs on Chinese goods for 90-days did lift prices marginally. Prices are now ranging around $64/bbl, caught between bearish sentiment linked to unexpected crude inventory builds in the US and a third consecutive month of schedule-busting OPEC+ supply hikes on the one hand, and falling US oil rig counts and pessimism surrounding the prospects for a new Iran nuclear deal that would satisfy both the US and Iran on the other. President Trump's 'maximum pressure' strategy vis-à-vis Iran and threat to impose even more stringent sanctions on the country's energy exports has been one of the few bullish impulses for oil prices and could puncture the negative sentiment that has befallen the oil market in 2025. The pessimism has also been evident in the formation of a curious anomaly in Brent's forward curve: while the front end of the curve has been 'backwardated'(near-term prices higher than prices in the future), later month prices have shifted into a contango structure that see prices rising over earlier months. This so-called 'smiley' structure is fairly unprecedented and appears to signal that markets believe summer oil demand will be healthy enough to keep prices firm in the short term but insufficient to prevent a surplus and stock builds later on. And this is due to the potent combination of trade-tariff linked macroeconomic weakness and accelerating OPEC+ supply especially. Meanwhile, the bullish speculator positions that had built up in Q1 quickly reversed in Q2 amid the spike in risk and uncertainty that followed April's tariff onslaught and OPEC+'s accelerated resupply timetable. 'Net length', the difference between the number of 'long' (betting on prices rising) and 'short' contracts (positions staked on prices falling) declined by 155,838 lots w/w in the week-ending 4 April, the sharpest drop in the available data. Net length has recovered slightly more recently as hedge funds view some upside risk in US-Iran nuclear talks failing to progress. Near-term oil demand growth was revised sharply lower following the escalation of the trade war between the US and China. The International Energy Agency (IEA), taking its cue from the earlier downgrade by the IMF to global GDP growth in 2025 (and beyond), has lowered its forecast for oil demand growth this year to 740 kb/d and 760 kb/d in 2026. This is the weakest rate of growth since pandemic-affected 2020. The IEA pegs total oil demand at 105 mb/d in 2025. OPEC lowered its demand growth forecast by a less severe 150 kb/d to 1.3 mb/d for both years. OPEC cites higher petrochemical production, solid road and air mobility as well as robust industrial activity in support of its more bullish oil demand growth projection compared to peers. This would also not be incongruous with its recent policy of fast-tracking the unwinding of members' voluntary supply cuts. Despite broad demand-side worries, OPEC+ surprised the markets by accelerating the pace of unwind of 2.2 mb/d in voluntary output cuts by the 'OPEC-8' (which includes Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman) from 131 kb/d per month from April to 411kb/d in May and then again for both June and July. The move was ostensibly framed as a bid to 'punish' serial quota violators, such as Kazakhstan and Iraq, for failing to cut production in line with their quota obligations and compensatory cut promises. The Saudis hoped the fiscal discomfort of freefalling oil prices would bring about the discipline that has so far been absent among these overproducing members. Part of the deal was that overproducing members would in good faith compensate for their non-compliance by cutting production according to a mutually agreed timetable thereby offsetting some of the supply that was about to be released. According to OPEC secondary sources, the average aggregate volume of OPEC-8 compensatory cuts required as 'payback' for members' overproduction from January 2024 to March 2025 is 305 kb/d, which would have easily offset the 131 kb/d of monthly incremental production OPEC-8 had originally planned. This would have resulted in a de-facto output cut. That said, in April, the first month in the schedule that called for higher OPEC-8 supply, monthly supply gains from the group, at 23 kb/d, fell far short of the 131 kb/d that had been planned. Only four of the eight producers – Saudi, the UAE, Oman and Russia – increased production. Despite lowering output in April, Kazakhstan and Iraq were once again producing well above their respective quotas never mind honoring compensatory cut pledges. Declaration of Cooperation(DOC) production (excluding quota-exempt Iran, Libya, Venezuela and Mexico) fell slightly in April to 30.0 mb/d (-17 kb/d). In the US, crude production hovered near record levels of 13.4 mb/d by mid-May, as per Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. (Chart 6).Following the plunge in oil prices and the downturn in global macroeconomic prospects, the EIA lowered its forecast for US crude oil output growth this year by nearly half to 208kb/d, the slowest rate of expansion since 2021.
