Korea urges US to drop safeguard tariffs on Korean washers

By Lee Min-hyung

U.S. President Donald Trump

The government is urging the United States to drop its safeguard tariffs on washing machines made here, as they have not caused any serious injury to domestic manufacturers and related industries there ever since the protectionist measures were imposed in February last year.

“The U.S. government should withdraw the safeguard measures as soon as possible, as Korean-made washers have not inflicted any damage on relevant industries in the U.S.,” the ministry told the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) during a public hearing, Tuesday (local time).

Officials from the foreign ministry, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and LG Electronics joined the hearing to voice the need to stop applying the measures.

Under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on safeguards, the measures should be implemented for a certain period of time only when serious damage is expected to arise following imports of foreign products, the Korean delegation said.

But no damage has so far been inflicted on the U.S. manufacturing sector after Washington imposed the tariffs on Korean washers, according to the delegation.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have fallen victim to the U.S. decision under which Washington imposed 20 percent tariffs on the first 1.2 million imported washing machines, while additionally imported ones were subject to 50 percent. Washers manufactured in the U.S. are not subject to the tariffs.

The decision was apparently introduced to target the two world’s largest washer manufacturers.

This came as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy he has pushed since his inauguration in January 2017.

He has since stepped up political pressure on manufacturing companies based in other countries, urging them to build factories in the U.S. in a move to create more jobs and rev up the local economy there.

To minimize the impact from his protectionist policy, LG Electronics held a groundbreaking ceremony for a washing machine factory in Clarksville, Tennessee, in August 2017. The facility comes with an annual manufacturing capacity of 1.2 million washers. It started operations last December.

A home appliance factory of Samsung Electronics in Newberry, South Carolina, has also been in operation since February last year.

The foreign ministry said it would continue joining hands with relevant government partners and the industrial sector to seek the removal of U.S. tariffs.

“We are going to continue pushing the U.S. authority,” a government official said. “We will also take active measures to win a dispute filed with the WTO in May last year over the U.S.’ safeguards decision on washing machines.”