President Donald Trump threatened to terminate the U.S. trade agreement with South Korea in an interview Thursday night with the Washington Post, declaring that the five-year-old accord was “a horrible deal” that has left America “destroyed.”
“It’s a horrible deal. It was a Hillary Clinton disaster, a deal that should’ve never been made,” Trump said. “It’s a one-way street.” Once again demonstrating that he has no understanding of the benefits of even unilateral open trade.
South Korea is the United States’ sixth-largest goods trade partner, and the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea was $27.7 billion last year, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
In other words, Americans love buying South Korean products and Trump wants to slow the flow of the products.
“We’ve told them that we’ll either terminate or negotiate,” Trump said. “We may terminate.”
The president explained that the process of termination of Korus is simpler than with the North American Free Trade Agreement. “With NAFTA, we terminate tomorrow; if we did, it ends in six months. With the Korean deal, we terminate and it’s over.”
Trump added: “I will do that unless we make a fair deal. We’re getting destroyed in Korea.”
-RW
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