Trump Says ‘Had A Great Call’ With South Korea On Tariffs – ‘Their Top Team Is On A Plane Heading To The US’

President Donald Trump said he had a “great call” with South Korea’s Acting President Han Duck-soo to negotiate tariffs.

“I just had a great call with the Acting President of South Korea. We talked about their tremendous and unsustainable Surplus, Tariffs, Shipbuilding, large scale purchase of U.S. LNG,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

This comes a day before Trump's 25% tariffs on the Asian ally are set to kick in. South Korea’s trade minister, Cheong In-kyo, is on his way to the States to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to negotiate over Trump's tariffs.

“It is difficult to reduce exports, so shouldn't we then increase (U.S.) imports? In that regard, we have been reviewing many different packages of measures to resolve the trade balance problem,” said Cheong in South Korea on his way to Washington, according to a Reuters report.

While Cheong said the 25% Trump tariffs are “problematic,” the President’s conversation with his South Korean counterpart is a new development ahead of the negotiation talks.

“Their top TEAM is on a plane heading to the U.S., and things are looking good,” Trump said while adding that China also wants to strike a deal “badly.”

This comes at a time when the Chinese commerce ministry vowed to fight Trump's tariffs “to the end,” terming the 50% additional tariff threat a “mistake upon a mistake,” in a clear case of escalating tensions between the world’s top two economic powerhouses.

Amid the ongoing developments on the tariffs front, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was up nearly 4% at the time of writing.

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