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South Korea will strengthen its scrutiny of metals imports to protect its producers from potential dumping in the local market after President Donald Trump proceeded with plans to apply 25% tariffs on global steel and aluminum imports.
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Published Mar 13, 2025 • 2 minute read
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(Bloomberg) — South Korea will strengthen its scrutiny of metals imports to protect its producers from potential dumping in the local market after President Donald Trump proceeded with plans to apply 25% tariffs on global steel and aluminum imports.
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South Korea, a major metals producer in Asia, refrained from taking any immediate retaliation steps after the duties took effect Wednesday. Instead, Seoul sent its trade minister to Washington to accelerate negotiations with the Trump administration and pledged to come up with measures to support its companies by the end of this month.
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The latest tariffs follow trade measures introduced in Trump’s first term. This time round the tariffs remove exemptions for many nations and extend them to new categories of products. South Korea was among countries that had won exemptions during Trump’s first term.
The risk for steelmakers around the world is that the tariffs worsen oversupply, piling pressure on producers and governments at a time when demand for the alloy is already shaky. Some governments have already tightened scrutiny of product flows, with Taiwan launching an anti-dumping probe into certain steel products from China earlier this week.
South Korea’s Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun convened a meeting with business leaders Thursday and discussed ways to beef up their joint response to US tariffs. He has urged companies to actively reach out to US stakeholders and share details of their discussions with the government real-time.
The government will come up with a plan to counter unfair imports based on that meeting, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement. The measures will include heightened monitoring of imports and circumvention efforts, the ministry said.
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On the same day, South Korea’s Acting President Choi Sang-mok held a separate meeting with top policymakers and urged them to prepare for possible market disruptions following the US tariffs.
“Choi called for utmost efforts in negotiations with the US and ordered officials to make sure a rapid influx of steel materials that could not be exported to the US and other countries doesn’t cause disruptions in the domestic market,” his office said in a readout.
Trump last week cited South Korea as a country with more unfair tariffs against American products than China, slamming the use of subsidies to support chipmakers like Samsung Electronics Co. South Korea has rebutted the claim, saying its effective tariff on US imports amounted to 0.79% last year due to a free trade deal that came into effect in 2012.
South Korea’s trade minister will be in Washington this week to sit down with his US counterparts on trade matters. Asia’s fourth-largest economy relies heavily on commerce for growth, with its largest companies generating the bulk of their revenues overseas.
(Updates with details of minister’s meeting with steelmakers)
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