Korean Deal Won't Be Ready by Trump's South Korea Visit
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there's no hang-up preventing the South Korean trade framework from moving to a signed deal, "just a lot of details to work out. It's a very complicated deal, and I think we're very close." However, he told reporters on Air Force One on Oct. 27 that he didn't think it would be done by Oct. 29, when the president lands in Korea.
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Bessent, U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer, the president, and other officials were flying between Malaysia and Japan as they talked to reporters.
Greer added that there are issues related to Section 232 tariffs, which he said "are really not my wheelhouse," but there have been resolutions on some non-tariff barriers in Korea that have bedeviled U.S. exporters for years.
He added, "And then there's another piece, which is really about investment going forward. The Koreans have a great plan to invest in U.S. shipbuilding even more [than] they've already done. And so they're talking right now, frankly, about how to implement Korean investment in the United States in the best way to make sure that we're..."
Here President Donald Trump jumped in, saying "especially for shipbuilding." He also mentioned the immigration raid at a factory complex in Georgia that swept up hundreds of Korean technicians and businessmen. He said he was "very much opposed" to the raid, and that the issue of short-term visas has been fixed.
When foreign companies -- not just Koreans -- are "making very complex machinery, equipment, things, they're going to have to bring some people in, at least at the initial phase. In that case, it was batteries," Trump said. "Batteries are very complex, and they're actually very dangerous to make. You can't just pick people off an unemployment line and say, we just opened up a $2 billion battery factory. "
He said the companies would bring in experienced people to get production launched of "very, very complex, very highly sophisticated equipment. They've got to bring people in with them for a period of time. They'll teach our people how to do it, but even for a fairly long period of time, they're going to need expertise to be successful."
He named chip foundries as an example of a business where foreign workers will be needed until enough Americans can be trained, and said it would be a "slow phase-out."