U.S. to Start Korean Trade Talks Amid Rising Tensions<br />The United States Korea Free Trade Agreement, America’s largest trade pact after the North American Free Trade<br />Agreement, was negotiated during the George W. Bush administration and signed by both countries in 2007.<br />The deal opened South Korea, now the United States’ seventh-largest export market for goods, to imports of American agriculture, services<br />and investment, and the American market to Korean cars and other manufactured goods like washing machines.<br />“Since KORUS went into effect, our trade deficit in goods with Korea has doubled from $13.2 billion to $27.6 billion, while<br />U. S. goods exports have actually gone down,” Robert Lighthizer, the lead trade official, said in a statement in July.<br />But clashes over trading terms could risk dividing the longstanding allies at a critical time,<br />as North Korea seeks to drive a wedge between South Korea and Mr. Trump, analysts say.
