South Korea finds 'Made in Korea' breaches intended to avoid US tariffs

Reuters

Sun, Apr 20, 2025, 6:02 PM 2 min read

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea has recovered rising attempts to disguise overseas products arsenic Korean exports, mostly from China, to debar U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, its customs bureau said connected Monday.

The Korea Customs Service said it has recovered 29.5 cardinal won ($20.81 million) worthy of country-of-origin violations from the archetypal quarter, with U.S.-bound shipments accounting for 97% of the total, aft a peculiar probe past month.

That compared to a full of 34.8 cardinal won worthy of violations for each of 2024, among which U.S.-bound shipments accounted for 62%.

Since taking bureau successful January, Trump has introduced large tariffs connected assorted products and countries that started to travel into unit successful March.

South Korean officials person said determination could beryllium a emergence successful attempts by overseas companies, specified arsenic those successful neighbouring China, to usage South Korea, which is simply a large U.S. state and has a free-trade pact, arsenic a bypass to debar tariffs and regulations.

Trump slapped 25% tariffs connected South Korea this month, which were aboriginal suspended for 3 months. The U.S. present imposes 145% tariffs connected China aft back-and-forth retaliatory actions, which economists accidental person severed commercialized betwixt the world's 2 biggest economies.

Monday's findings see 3.3 cardinal won worthy of cathode materials utilized for batteries, imported from China and shipped to the U.S. with South Korea falsely marked arsenic the state of origin, to debar already precocious tariffs successful January adjacent earlier Trump's tariffs took effect.

In March, 19.3 cardinal won worthy of surveillance cameras were imported from China successful parts and reassembled successful South Korea to bypass U.S. restrictions connected Chinese connection devices.

The Korea Customs Service has launched a peculiar task unit to forestall amerciable export attempts and plans to travel up with much circumstantial effect measures to support home companies.

($1 = 1,417.4900 won)

(Reporting by Jihoon LeeEditing by Rod Nickel)