장동우
| 2026-10-09 03:17:44
By Chang Dong-woo
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 (Yonhap) -- - A White House official on Thursday accused South Korea of flooding the U.S. market with heavily subsidized steel products and Chinese steel shipped through the country, warning that Washington is taking action to crack down on such purported measures.
"South Korea is inundating the U.S. with highly subsidized steel and steel transshipped from China," Peter Navarro, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, wrote on social media platform X.
"We are cracking down," he added, while sharing a video clip of him speaking with reporters earlier this week on U.S. trade.
In the news video clip from Tuesday, Navarro said he wants to "call out" in particular South Korea for "inundating" the American market with highly subsidized Korean steel and transshipped steel from China.
"Even though we have very high tariffs, 50 percent on steel, they are blowing past that because they cheat, and we're gonna be doing something about that."
Foreign steelmakers in the U.S. face tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the U.S. president to adjust imports deemed to threaten national security, as well as other trade remedy measures, the ministry said.
South Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan last month urged Washington to pay close attention to difficulties facing Korean companies investing in the U.S. and support the project by easing tariffs on equipment and materials that need to be shipped from South Korea.
Last month, Hyundai-POSCO Louisiana Steel LLC, a joint venture between South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group and POSCO Holdings, broke ground for an electric arc furnace-based integrated steel mill construction project in the U.S. state of Louisiana scheduled to be completed in 2029.
The project is part of Hyundai Motor Group's US$26 billion U.S. investment plan announced last year. POSCO has taken a 20 percent stake in the project.
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