Anchor: U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed his economics team to come up with comprehensive plans for reciprocal tariffs on countries that charge duties on U.S. imports. With Trump calling for the review of current levels of import duties and nontariff barriers, Seoul is working on identifying areas of interest to the Trump administration and formulating its positions. 
Kim Bum-soo has more. 
Report:
 
[Sound bite: U.S. President Donald Trump] ~17:00
“Reciprocal, reciprocal makes tariffs really fair.”
(Reporter: “There are going to be no exemptions, right? ...)
“ … no exemptions now, because you don’t need to with reciprocal. You don’t need to.
 
For any country that has import duties on American products, the U.S. will charge equivalent tariffs on imports from that country.
 
U.S. President Donald Trump introduced his reciprocal tariff plan Thursday.

[Sound bite: U.S. President Donald Trump] 
“ ... this is going to be the thing that makes our country really prosperous again, and this is going to be what pays down to 36 trillion dollars in debt and all the other things. And this is going to be, this is an amazing day.”

Trump ordered his team to calculate import duties for trade counterparts, factoring in how nontariff barriers, such as safety regulations and value-added taxes, make American products less attractive in foreign markets.

[Sound bite: U.S. President Donald Trump] 
(Reporter: “Mr. President, is it your expectation that partners will offer major concessions and that you actually don’t end up applying those tariffs?”) 
“No, I think that a lot of them will stay the same. And whatever they pay, I’ll pay. I mean, well, we’ll have, we’ll have a lot of them stay the same ...”

In Seoul on Friday, acting President Choi Sang-mok met with key economic officials to discuss Trump’s latest protectionist move. 

Noting that tariff rates are already low due to the 2007 bilateral free trade pact with the U.S., Choi said the reciprocal tariffs may not have a significant impact on the South Korean economy.

Under the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, South Korea on average charged point-79 percent tariffs on American imports last year, according to the finance ministry in Seoul. 

But from the Trump administration’s point of view, the U.S. trade deficit with South Korea amounted to some 66 billion dollars in 2024, the eighth-largest trade deficit the U.S. posted that year.

Amid concerns that Trump is targeting China, Japan, the European Union and South Korea, the government in Seoul will identify key areas of U.S. interest and come up with explanations for its existing nontariff barriers.

Trump’s commerce secretary nominee said the administration will address each trade counterpart one by one and wrap up studies on the issue by April 1. 
Kim Bum-soo, KBS World Radio News.