South Korea's Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee departed for Washington Tuesday to discuss Japanese export restrictions on South Korean firms with U.S. officials.

Speaking to reporters before she left, Yoo said she will meet government and Congressional officials and relay Seoul’s projections of the damage Japan’s export curbs will cause on the U.S. and global economies.

She said that this week is a critical period in the dispute with Japan as a World Trade Organization General Council meeting is scheduled to begin Tuesday local time in Geneva.

Japan is also currently mulling whether to remove South Korea from a shortlist of countries that enjoy streamlined trade relations with Japan, which would delay or disrupt shipments of about one-thousand types of goods.

The move is an anticipated follow-up to Tokyo's restriction of three high-tech material exports to South Korea in apparent retaliation for recent top court rulings ordering some Japanese companies to compensate Korean victims of wartime forced labor.

Kim Hyun-chong, deputy chief of the presidential National Security Office, also visited the U.S. earlier this month to lobby against the restrictions. 

The U.S. has stressed the importance of friendly ties between its two Northeast Asian allies and has so far not taken a side publicly in the dispute.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton may engage in talks on the issue when he arrives in Seoul Tuesday following a trip to Japan.