Anchor: U.S. President Trump has claimed that the United States is the world’s leading energy producer and is becoming a major exporter. Speaking at an event in Washington, he said his administration’s trade deals with countries like South Korea have led to a dramatic increase in American coal exports.
Rosyn Park has more.

Report: U.S. President Donald Trump says his country is the world’s leading energy producer, and under his administration’s leadership, is becoming a “massive energy exporter.” 

During the Champion of Coal Event at the White House on Wednesday, Trump cited recent trade agreements, including a deal with South Korea, as helping to achieve the aim.

[Sound bite: U.S. President Donald Trump (English)]: 
"In just the past few months, we’ve made historic trade deals with Japan, Korea, India and others to increase our coal exports dramatically. We are now exporting coal to all over the world."

It was the first time Trump publicly mentioned coal exports in relation to the trade agreement Washington reached with Seoul last year.

Last July, Trump announced on his social media the conclusion of a trade deal where South Korea pledged to purchase 100 billion dollars in U.S. energy products, including liquefied natural gas, amid negotiations to resolve tariff disputes. 

It was part of a larger agreement involving 350 billion dollars in investments to reduce U.S. tariffs on South Korean goods from 25 percent to 15 percent.

But the agreement has been upended by Trump’s latest threat to hike tariffs on South Korea back to 25 percent because the Asian ally’s legislature has yet to approve the trade framework announced last year.

The National Assembly in Seoul is working to pass the bills needed to ratify the trade deal and has launched a bipartisan special committee to help speed up the process and address Trump’s threat.

It remains unclear how fast the committee will be able to do its job as political disputes over domestic reform bills sidetracked their first meeting on Thursday.
Rosyn Park, KBS World Radio News.