US President Donald Trump announced plans Wednesday to impose a minimum
10 percent "baseline" tariff on all imports to the United States and
"reciprocal" tariffs, including 25 percent duties for South Korea, as he
seeks to reduce America''s trade deficits and bolster domestic
manufacturing.

Trump made the much-anticipated announcement on the baseline and
reciprocal tariffs, which will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday
and at 12:01 a.m. next Wednesday, respectively, as he hosted the "Make
America Wealthy Again" event at the White House Rose Garden.

He declared a national emergency on concerns over America''s "large and
persistent" trade deficits and invoked the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act of 1977 to address the emergency through the
imposition of new tariffs.

South Korea and others on what the Trump administration called the
"worst offender" list keenly watched the announcement on what Trump
hyped up as "Liberation Day," as they have been struggling to navigate
through the growing list of the Trump administration''s new tariffs.

"This is Liberation Day ... April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as
the day American industry was reborn, the day America''s destiny was
reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again," he
said in a speech at the event.

With a chart showing individualized reciprocal tariffs, Trump cast the
new duties as "kind" and "common sense," claiming that the US will
impose just half the rate each targeted country was supposed to pay.

The chart showed 34 percent reciprocal tariffs for China, 20 percent for
the European Union, 46 percent for Vietnam, 32 percent for Taiwan, 24
percent for Japan, 26 percent for India, 36 percent for Thailand, 31
percent for Switzerland, 32 percent for Indonesia, 24 percent for
Malaysia, 49 percent for Cambodia and 10 percent for Britain.

The country-by-country tariffs were customized based on trading
partners'' tariff- and non-tariff barriers as well as other factors, such
as countries'' exchange rate-related policies and practices, officials
have said.

Some goods are not subject to reciprocal tariffs, including steel,
aluminum, automobiles and key auto parts -- the targets of the already
announced or enforced industry-specific tariffs, according to the White
House. Goods that comply with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a free
trade pact, will continue to see a zero tariff.

Trump justified the new tariffs, lambasting trade barriers imposed by
foreign countries.

"For decades, the United States slashed trade barriers on other
countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products
and created outrageous non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries,
and in many cases, the non-monetary barriers were worse than the
monetary ones," Trump said.

He particularly pointed out non-monetary trade restrictions imposed by
South Korea and Japan -- a mention that highlighted his perception about
those trading partners.

"As a result of these colossal trade barriers, 81 percent of the cars in
South Korea are made in South Korea. Ninety-four percent of the cars in
Japan are made in Japan," he said.

In an online press briefing prior to the announcement, senior US
officials described the group of roughly 60 countries subject to
reciprocal tariffs as the "worst offenders."

"The worst offenders will have reciprocal tariffs applied to them," one
official told reporters. "We will not apply the entirety of that
reciprocal tariff. The president is lenient, and he wants to be kind to
the world."

Asked if there is any opportunity for countries to negotiate deals over
reciprocal tariffs, the official struck a nuanced yet negative note.

"With respect to negotiations, we are very focused on getting this new
tariff regime in place because we feel that there has been extreme
unfairness and a lack of reciprocity driving these kinds of deficits
that are undermining our national and economic security," he said.

Another official took note of South Korea''s tariff rate on its most-
favored nations -- a rate not applicable to countries with a free trade
agreement with Korea, including the US -- as he tried to accentuate
those with high trade barriers.

"MFN tariff rates run ... the other countries we trade with ... they run
anywhere from two to three or four times higher. Our MFN is 3.5
percent," he said. "India is 15 percent. South Korea is 13 percent.
Vietnam is almost 10 percent."

His perception came despite Seoul''s diplomatic efforts to correct the
view after Trump said in an address to Congress last month that South
Korea''s average tariff is four times higher than that of the US.

The latest US tariffs represented an expansion of Trump''s trade war on a
global scale given that the tariff fight had affected some countries,
including China, Canada and Mexico, as well as several product targets,
such as steel and aluminum.

The tariffs further jeopardized the fate of the Korea-US FTA, raising
the expectations that Seoul might try to reach a new deal to reduce its
trade surplus with the US and find an optimal balance in the trade
relations between the two countries.

South Korea had anxiously awaited the tariff announcement as it was
expected to become a target for Trump''s tariff pressure given that the
US trade deficit with South Korea was tallied at US$66 billion last
year, a nearly 30 percent rise from the previous year, according to the
Office of the US Trade Representative. (Yonhap)