Latest news with #Lee Jae-myung
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
South Korea trade envoy: may be able to strike framework deal with US by Aug 1 deadline
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's top trade envoy said on Monday it may be possible to strike an "in-principle" trade deal with the United States by an August 1 deadline, but time is short to work out a detailed package seeking exemption from punishing U.S. tariffs, media reports said. Minister for Trade Yeo Han-koo, who held high-level talks with U.S. officials last week, said South Korea may have to make some strategic decisions over its agriculture market as part of trade negotiations with the United States, the Yonhap News Agency said. "I believe it's possible to reach an agreement in principle in the U.S. tariff negotiations, and then take some time to negotiate further," the Newsis news agency quoted Yeo as telling local media reporters. "Twenty days are not enough to come up with a perfect treaty that contains every detail." There was "considerable progress" in the discussion with U.S. officials over cooperation in key industrial sectors as part of the trade talks, Yeo was cited as saying, but Washington needs to cut industry-specific tariffs on autos and steel, calling them "unfair" and severely undermining bilateral cooperation. South Korea is in a race to reach a compromise trade pact in the hope of avoiding a 25% tariff slapped on its exports announced by U.S. President Donald Trump that is set to kick in on August 1, after a late start to negotiations with a new president voted in last month. President Lee Jae-myung took office on June 4 following the ouster of his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol over a failed martial law attempt. The six months of political turmoil forced Seoul to initially focus on technical discussions over Trump's demands.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
South Korea trade envoy: may be able to strike framework deal with US by Aug 1 deadline
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea's top trade envoy said on Monday it may be possible to strike an "in-principle" trade deal with the United States by an August 1 deadline, but time is short to work out a detailed package seeking exemption from punishing U.S. tariffs, media reports said. Minister for Trade Yeo Han-koo, who held high-level talks with U.S. officials last week, said South Korea may have to make some strategic decisions over its agriculture market as part of trade negotiations with the United States, the Yonhap News Agency said. "I believe it's possible to reach an agreement in principle in the U.S. tariff negotiations, and then take some time to negotiate further," the Newsis news agency quoted Yeo as telling local media reporters. "Twenty days are not enough to come up with a perfect treaty that contains every detail." There was "considerable progress" in the discussion with U.S. officials over cooperation in key industrial sectors as part of the trade talks, Yeo was cited as saying, but Washington needs to cut industry-specific tariffs on autos and steel, calling them "unfair" and severely undermining bilateral cooperation. South Korea is in a race to reach a compromise trade pact in the hope of avoiding a 25% tariff slapped on its exports announced by U.S. President Donald Trump that is set to kick in on August 1, after a late start to negotiations with a new president voted in last month. President Lee Jae-myung took office on June 4 following the ouster of his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol over a failed martial law attempt. The six months of political turmoil forced Seoul to initially focus on technical discussions over Trump's demands. Sign in to access your portfolio
CNA
6 days ago
- Politics
- CNA
Commentary: China's Yellow Sea moves put South Korea's new president in a tight spot
BUSAN: Since 2018, China has installed several marine structures in overlapping South Korean-Chinese waters in the Yellow Sea. There are now three of them, which Beijing refers to as 'deep-sea fishery aquaculture facilities'. This has been a point of contention between the two governments, but the issue has risen in South Korean public awareness after Chinese coast guard ships and civilian boats forced away a South Korean research vessel sent to investigate these structures in February. This led to a two-hour standoff, during which the South Korean coast guard was also deployed. China has rejected requests from South Korea to relocate the structures outside of the shared area and in May unilaterally declared 'no-sail zones' within the area, according to a report by Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. The situation creates a tough dilemma for South Korea, especially its new progressive president, Lee Jae-myung. Unlike his conservative predecessor, Mr Lee wants to pivot away from a United States-aligned hawkishness on China and pursue a more transactional relationship which does not tie South Korea into a camp in the emerging Sino-US cold war. But that would almost certainly require appeasement of China – such as tolerating these Yellow Sea encroachments. PARALLELS WITH SOUTH CHINA SEA China's moves in the Yellow Sea parallel its behaviour in the South China Sea. There, for decades, China has steadily encroached on the maritime claims of the littoral states, most particularly Vietnam and the Philippines. China has justified these expansions via an ostensibly historical claim to the South China Sea – the nine-dash line. Such claims are highly contestable, of course. Almost every nation can put forward historically based claims to adjacent but disputed territory. Indeed, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was promulgated precisely to adjudicate these sorts of irreconcilable assertions. And an UNCLOS arbitration panel ruled unanimously against the nine-dash line in 2016. China has ignored that ruling and continued to assert its position by reclaiming land, building artificial islands, and ramping up its air and naval facilities and patrols. To avoid the open perception of military expansion however, Chinese civilian fleets – fishing boats and the coast guard – have led this territorial creep. The military only shows up later, after other claimants have effectively given up trying to stop the Chinese takeover. Strategic theory calls this 'grey zone tactics' - craftily changing facts on the ground (and water) without the explicit use of force. China's opponents then struggle to find an appropriate response. For example, the US is a security partner to both the Philippines and Vietnam, but America is unlikely to risk war with China over low stakes like coast guard vessels circling sand bars. GREY ZONE TACTICS IN THE YELLOW SEA China's steady gains in the South China Sea have likely encouraged it to try the same strategy in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea. Pushing into the East China Sea has been hard. Japan has the resources and naval capabilities, which the Philippines and Vietnam lack, to push back on Chinese maritime expansion. But the Yellow Sea is a better domain for China. Its North Korean ally is one the relevant littoral states, and it will do nothing to deter China. South Korea, the other relevant party, has a capable but small navy. Most of South Korean defence spending goes into land power. Although South Korea has a long coast, the North Koreans have built such a massive army – 1.5 million men – and stationed it so close to South Korea's capital, that South Korea spends disproportionately on its army and air force to outgun the North Korean threat. The South, for example, recently considered building an aircraft carrier to challenge China's maritime expansion, but the national legislature rejected it as too expensive. At present, South Korea mostly relies on US naval power for maritime security. This arrangement has been feasible in the past, but the Chinese navy is expanding rapidly. The US is unlikely to risk war with China over indeterminate structures in the East China Sea - just as it has been reticent to help the Philippines directly over low stakes like shoals and coral reefs. TRICKY FOR SOUTH KOREA'S NEW PRESIDENT All this puts South Korea's president in a tight spot. South Korean progressives have a long foreign policy tradition of anti-Americanism and downplaying North Korean totalitarianism to facilitate detente. More broadly, this has led to equivocation on Russia and China, and a reticence to admit that China, Russia and North Korea cooperate. Mr Lee, for example, has blamed Ukraine for its invasion by Russian and said South Korea should not help Taiwan if China attacks it. This nationalist-minded foreign policy is attractive for the independence it promises from American 'domination'. But it also means that South Korea must stand on its own if North Korea, China and Russia bully it. The South Korean public opinion senses this. The public strongly supports the US alliance and has become increasingly anti-Chinese. According to a survey by JoongAng Ilbo and the East Asia Institute in June, 66.3 per cent of respondents said they held an unfavourable view of China. This is up from 63.8 per cent in a similar survey last August. If Mr Lee is seen as folding before Chinese pressure in the Yellow Sea, the public backlash will be sharp. On the other hand, if Mr Lee falls back on alignment with the US to push back China, the price will be greater South Korean cooperation on Taiwan, the East and South China Seas, Ukraine, and so on. This choice was easy for Mr Lee's conservative predecessor. For Mr Lee, it is likely to lead to a sharp foreign policy fight inside his left-progressive coalition.
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Old Trump remarks falsely linked to former South Korean president's arrest
"President Trump's response to news of President Yoon Suk Yeol's detention," reads the title of a post shared on South Korean far-right forum Ilbe on July 10, 2025. The post was shared hours after Yoon was detained and held in a solitary cell pending investigations into accusations of insurrection related to his suspension of civilian rule in December 2024 (archived link). An attached video shows Trump telling reporters: "Thank you, it's a very sad day for America. If you look at what's happening, this is a persecution of a political opponent. This was never supposed to happen." A Korean-language translation of his remarks are included in the post. Yoon was taken into custody at the Seoul Detention Center on July 10 after an hours-long review of an arrest warrant by a Seoul court. A special counsel probing Yoon's case had filed for his arrest days earlier citing concerns the former president might destroy crucial evidence as the investigation expanded into alleged insurrection. Yoon was removed from office by the Constitutional Court in April, prompting a snap poll that resulted in the election of ex-opposition leader Lee Jae-myung. The same clip purportedly showing Trump's response to Yoon's detention also circulated among right-wing users on Facebook, YouTube and South Korean online forums including Naver Band. "We agree with you Mr President, Lee is forcibly persecuting and imprisoning President Yoon Suk Yeol," read a comment on one of the posts. Another said: "Trump will now rain down tariffs as punishment for this." But Trump was not speaking about Yoon's detention. A keyword search for Trump's remarks on YouTube led to longer footage posted on the verified YouTube channel of US broadcaster CBS News on August 3, 2023 (archived link). The YouTube video is titled, "Trump says it's 'a very sad day for America' after 3rd criminal arraignment". He was speaking after he pleaded not guilty to four federal charges stemming from his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election he lost to Joe Biden (archived link). The falsely shared version of the footage that circulated on South Korean social media appears to be a cropped version of a YouTube short posted by the Reuters news agency (archived link). In the longer video, Trump's other comments show he was referring to himself -- not any foreign leader -- as he references the 2024 US presidential election he would go on to win (archived link). "This is the persecution of the person that is leading by very, very substantial numbers in the Republican primary and leading Biden by a lot," he says. "If you can't beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him, you can't let this happen in America." Trump's remarks were covered in US and international news reports at the time (archived here, here and here). AFP has debunked multiple other false posts claiming Trump has expressed support for Yoon.
