South Korean Lee Jae-myung warns Trump against US immigration raid in Hyundai-LG battery plant could create hesitation for investment. Image credit: Anadolu Ajansi.
(The Post News) – South Korean President, Lee Jae-myung has raised concerns that should South Korea’s government accept the current United States (US) demands in stalled trade talks without safeguards the country’s economy could fall into crisis rivalling its 1997 meltdown.
On Monday Reuters reported that, an expert noted that while South Korea has limited room for a hardline stance, Lee’s statement underscores the predicament that US economic bullying against South Korea has created for the country.
“Without a currency swap, if we were to withdraw $350 billion in the manner that the United State is demanding and to invest this all in cash in the US, South Korea would face a situation as it had in the 1997 financial crisis,” he said through a translator.
Jae-myung will make a trip to New York, where he will address the United Nations General Assembly and be the first South Korean president to chair a meeting of the Security Council, according to the Reuters. However, the report said that trade and defense talks with America, South Korea’s military ally and a top economic partner, were overshadowing the trip.
Lee said that Seoul and Washington verbally agreed to a trade deal in July in which the state would lower US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on South Korean goods in exchange for $350 billion in investment from South Korea, among other measures. He said, however, they have yet to put the agreement to paper because of disputes over how the investments would be handled.
This month Trump’s administration rocked South Korea with the arrest of more than 300 South Korean workers at a Hyundai Motor battery plant in Georgia, with federal officials accusing them of immigration violations.
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