US to honor tariff caps in trade deals with EU, Japan, others

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, June 4 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer said Thursday that the United States will honor tariff caps in last year's trade deals with the European Union, Japan and other countries, saying "a deal is a deal," according to news reports.

He made the remarks during a press availability on the margins of an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ministerial meeting in Paris, Reuters and Bloomberg reported, amid concerns that U.S. trade investigations into South Korea and other countries would result in new tariffs that could exceed the caps.

Earlier this week, the USTR office proposed imposing 10 or 12.5 percent tariffs on products from 60 trading partners over their alleged failure to enforce import bans on products made with forced labor. South Korea is among the dozens of economies that would face the 12.5 percent levy.

"We understand that a deal is a deal," Greer said of the trade agreement with the EU. "We want to make sure that we are able to resolve the trading practices that are identified as problematic in our investigations and we're going to take into account the Turnberry deal, of course."

Under last year's trade agreement, Washington agreed to lower a country-specific "reciprocal" tariff on South Korea to 15 percent from 25 percent in exchange for South Korea committing to investing US$350 billion in the U.S., among other pledges.

Aside from the trade investigations on forced labor, the U.S. administration has been conducting separate investigations to uncover "unfair" trade practices related to "structural" excess capacity and production under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act.

The U.S. has been carrying out trade investigations to replace "reciprocal" tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court in February.