By Phil Eskeland “As Vice President… [Joe Biden] backed the horrendous South Korea trade deal, which took many jobs from our country which I reversed and made a great deal for our country.” Remarks of President Donald J. Trump upon accepting the Republican nomination for President, August 27, 2020 (President’s extemporaneous remarks in italics) Last…
September 2, 2020
By Phil Eskeland The U.S. Department of Commerce released its monthly trade data for January, which encompassed 4th Quarter 2018 statistics on trade in services with 15 individual countries, including South Korea. Once again, the U.S. maintained its bilateral trade surplus in services with Korea because of yet another record-level of U.S. service exports to…
March 27, 2019
By Phil Eskeland Before boarding Marine One on the White House lawn on his way to Lima, Ohio, President Donald Trump once again dangled the possibility of imposing tariffs as high as 25 percent on imported motor vehicles and parts as a tool to pressure the European Union in trade talks. His cajoling is made…
March 22, 2019
By Phil Eskeland As we continue to examine the effect of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) on its 7th anniversary, one of the major sticking points in the negotiations was the treatment of various agricultural products. Because South Korean tariffs on agricultural imports were very high (averaging 55.4 percent vs. 3.8 percent for…