Business

How South Korea’s next president wants to deal with Trump and his tariffs

Published

11 months ago

May 23, 2025

How South Korea’s next president wants to deal with Trump and his tariffs

SEOUL — The winner of South Korea’s upcoming presidential election will be faced with the task of uniting a country riven by political acrimony since the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who sparked national outrage after declaring martial law in December.

But first, they will have to contend with President Trump’s tariffs.

On Wednesday, U.S. and South Korean trade officials kicked off a new round of negotiations aimed at reaching a deal by July 8, when Trump’s 90-day reprieve for his “liberation day” tariffs expires. South Korea faces a 25% reciprocal tariff rate as well as product-specific duties of 25% for steel, aluminum and automobiles — all of which are major exports.

With the election scheduled for June 3, carrying these talks to the finish line will be the first and most pressing agenda item for South Korea’s next president.

For now, officials from the two countries have agreed to expand the talks beyond tariffs rates to include broader topics such as currency exchange rates and economic security — a reflection of Trump’s desire for a sweeping realignment of the U.S.–South Korea relationship that he has described as “one-stop shopping.”

But there are likely to be further complications.

Trump, who has long griped that South Korea does not pay enough for the upkeep of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country, has expressed a desire to fold defense cost-sharing into the current talks. Writing on his social media site last month, he said that he had discussed “payment for the big time Military Protection we provide to South Korea” with then-acting President Han Duck-soo.

But with Trump having once claimed he would get Seoul to pay $10 billion a year, the topic has been highly sensitive in South Korea, fueling calls for the country’s nuclear self-armament on grounds that the U.S. can no longer be relied upon for military support. There are also concerns in the country that a “package deal” favored by Trump may not work out to Seoul’s advantage.

Here’s what to know about what South Korea’s three leading presidential candidates have said about tariffs and the U.S.-South Korea relationship under Trump.

Lee Jae-myung, a candidate of the ruling Democratic Party, holds a news conference in January.

(Chung Sung-Jun / Associated Press)

Lee Jae-myung

The former leader of South Korea’s liberal Democratic Party, Lee, 61, is the front-runner in the race, having led by as many as 20 percentage points.

During Trump’s first term, Lee, then the mayor of Seongnam, cautioned against what he called “overly submissive attitudes” in the face of demands that South Korea should pay more for the presence of the U.S. military.

“Giving up whatever is demanded of us will only lead to us losing everything,” he said. “We need to boldly assert our position.”

Lee echoed those sentiments in a presidential debate Sunday, criticizing Han, the former acting president, for reportedly signaling his willingness to renegotiate the latest defense cost-sharing deal between Seoul and Washington.

Under what is known as the Special Measures Agreement, the U.S. has covered 40% to 50% of the total costs of keeping troops in South Korea, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service.

Under the latest version, which was signed under the outgoing Biden administration and will last from 2026 to 2030, Seoul’s annual contribution in the first year will be $1.19 billion, an 8.3% increase from 2025.

People in military fatigues are seen standing between two blue buildings

Lee, who is running on a platform of pragmatic diplomacy, has also stressed the need to balance South Korea’s relationship with the U.S. against those with regional neighbors such as Russia or China.

“The U.S.-South Korea alliance is important, and we need to expand and develop that in the future — from a security alliance into an economic alliance and a comprehensive alliance,” he said Sunday. “But that does not mean we can rely exclusively on the U.S.-South Korea alliance.”

While describing Trump’s tariffs as the “campaign of a madman,” Lee has also indicated a willingness to discuss a package deal that spans Trump’s Alaska natural gas pipeline project, the defense cost issue and cooperation in shipbuilding.

Lee’s camp has said that if elected, he will begin his term by seeking an extension of Trump’s 90-day grace period for the tariffs.

“If we win the election we will need time to closely examine the issues at the center of the trade relationship with the U.S. as well as any progress made on the tariff negotiations and come up with alternatives,” an official from Lee’s camp told the South Korean newspaper Donga Ilbo last week.

Kim Moon-soo

A distant second in the polls, Kim, 73, served as labor minister under the impeached Yoon and is the conservative People Power Party’s nominee.

Staying true to the South Korean right’s self-identification as the staunchly pro-U.S. political camp, Kim has accused Lee of seeking to curry favor with China at the expense of the U.S.-South Korea relationship.

“Your comments in the past would be considered appalling from the perspective of the U.S.,” he told Lee at the debate Sunday.

A person in a crowd wears an alien mask.

Unlike Lee, who has warned against rushing into a trade deal in favor of a slower and more strategic approach, Kim has said that he would immediately set up a U.S.-South Korea summit to ink a deal before July 8, if he is elected president.

“I will make sure that tariffs against South Korea are either removed or the lowest out of any country in the world,” he said at a recent rally.

To this end, Kim has cast himself as the candidate with the greatest chance of winning over Trump.

During his party’s primary debates in April, when asked by the moderator whether he would wear a MAGA hat if Trump requested it during any tariff negotiations, Kim responded: “I would do even more, I would even wear a jumper if he asked.”

“The most important thing in negotiating with President Trump is trust,” he said Sunday. “Only when both sides can trust each other can the U.S.-South Korea alliance be strengthened, and I am the one who has the most favorable and trusting relationship with President Trump.”

Asia markets index of Japan, South Korea and Australia is seen on a screen

On defense cost-sharing, Kim has struck a noticeably more acquiescent tone than Lee: At a meeting Monday of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, he said that he would be willing to accept a hike in Seoul’s contribution.

“The global order and trade environment is rapidly changing. In order to overcome these crises, it is critical that we strengthen positive cooperation and the U.S.-South Korea alliance,” he said. “I will establish common ground between the two countries through comprehensive negotiations and find a win-win solution for both.”

Lee Jun-seok

Polling around 10%, the 40-year old candidate from the conservative Reform Party faces long odds for the presidency.

Still, he has emphatically rejected repeated calls to form a unity ticket, presenting himself as the younger, shrewder and less doctrine-driven alternative to what he has criticized as the old-hat conservatism of those such as Kim.

At the debate Sunday, Lee Jun-seok called for “careful calculation” in navigating the U.S.-South Korea relationship under Trump, while emphasizing the need to demonstrate that South Korea is not just a trading partner but also an important strategic ally to Washington.

Yet when it comes to tariffs, he has also openly called Trump’s bluff.

“I think we have to bet on the fact that Trump will eventually find that it’s difficult to maintain this situation,” he said on a YouTube political talk show last month, citing the economic pressures that tariffs against China will create for Trump’s heartland supporters.

“What Trump is advancing isn’t sustainable…. My view is that, it’s likely that Trump will admit defeat as soon as within the next six months.”

Business

Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan

Published

2 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

Nike to Cut 1,400 Jobs as Part of Its Turnaround Plan

Nike is cutting about 1,400 jobs in its operations division, mostly from its technology department, the company said Thursday.

In a note to employees, Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the chief operating officer of Nike, said that management was nearly done reorganizing the business for its turnaround plan, and that the goal was to operate with “more speed, simplicity and precision.”

“This is not a new direction,” Mr. Alagirisamy told employees. “It is the next phase of the work already underway.”

Nike, the world’s largest sportswear company, is trying to recover after missteps led to a prolonged sales slump, in which the brand leaned into lifestyle products and away from performance shoes and apparel. Elliott Hill, the chief executive, has worked to realign the company around sports and speed up product development to create more breakthrough innovations.

In March, Nike told investors that it expected sales to fall this year, with growth in North America offset by poor performance in Asia, where the brand is struggling to rejuvenate sales in China. Executives said at the time that more volatility brought on by the war in the Middle East and rising oil prices might continue to affect its business.

The reorganization has involved cuts across many parts of the organization, including at its headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. Nike slashed some corporate staff last year and eliminated nearly 800 jobs at distribution centers in January.

“You never want to have to go through any sort of layoffs, but to re-center the company, we’re doing some of that,” Mr. Hill said in an interview earlier this year.

Mr. Alagirisamy told employees that Nike was reshaping its technology team and centering employees at its headquarters and a tech center in Bengaluru, India. The layoffs will affect workers across North America, Europe and Asia.

The cuts will also affect staffing in Nike’s factories for Air, the company’s proprietary cushioning system. Employees who work on the supply chain for raw materials will also experience changes as staff is integrated into footwear and apparel teams.

Nike’s Converse brand, which has struggled for years to revive sales, will move some of its engineering resources closer to the factories they support, the company said.

Mr. Alagirisamy said the moves were necessary to optimize Nike’s supply chain, deploy technology faster and bolster relationships with suppliers.

Business

Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

Published

4 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

Senate committee kills bill mandating insurance coverage for wildfire safe homes

A bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to homeowners who take steps to reduce wildfire risk on their property died in the Legislature.

The Senate Insurance Committee on Monday voted down the measure, SB 1076, one of the most ambitious bills spurred by the devastating January 2025 wildfires.

The vote came despite fire victims and others rallying at the state Capitol in support of the measure, authored by state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena), whose district includes the Eaton fire zone.

The Insurance Coverage for Fire-Safe Homes Act originally would have required insurers to offer and renew coverage for any home that meets wildfire-safety standards adopted by the insurance commissioner starting Jan. 1, 2028.

It also threatened insurers with a five-year ban from the sale of home or auto insurance if they did not comply, though it allowed for exceptions.

However, faced with strong opposition from the insurance industry, Pérez had agreed to amend the bill so it would have established community-wide pilot projects across the state to better understand the most effective way to limit property and insurance losses from wildfires.

Insurers would have had to offer four years of coverage to homeowners in successful pilot projects.

Denni Ritter, a vice president of the American Property Casualty Insurance Assn., told the committee that her trade group opposed the bill.

“While we appreciate the intent behind those conversations, those concepts do not remove our opposition, because they retain the same core flaw — substituting underwriting judgment and solvency safeguards with a statutory mandate to accept risk,” she said.

In voting against the bill Sen. Laura Richardson, (D-San Pedro), said: “Last I heard, in the United States, we don’t require any company to do anything. That’s the difference between capitalism and communism, frankly.”

The remarks against the measure prompted committee Chair Sen. Steve Padilla, (D-Chula Vista), to chastise committee members in opposition.

“I’m a little perturbed, and I’m a little disappointed, because you have someone who is trying to work with industry, who is trying to get facts and data,” he said.

Monday’s vote was the fourth time a bill that would have required insurers to offer coverage to so-called “fire hardened” homes failed in the Legislature since 2020, according to an analysis by insurance committee staff.

Fire hardening includes measures such as cutting back brush, installing fire resistant roofs and closing eaves to resist fire embers.

Pérez’s legislation was thought to have a better chance of passage because it followed the most catastrophic wildfires in U.S. history, which damaged or destroyed more than 18,000 structures and killed 31 people.

The bill was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and Every Fire Survivor’s Network, a community group founded in Altadena after the fires formerly called the Eaton Fire Survivors Network.

But it also had broad support from groups such as the California Apartment Association, the California Nurses Association and California Environmental Voters.

Leading up to the fires, many insurers, citing heightened fire risk, had dropped policyholders in fire-prone neighorhoods. That forced them onto the California FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, which offers limited but costly policies.

A Times analysis found that that in the Palisades and Eaton fire zones, the FAIR Plan’s rolls from 2020 to 2024 nearly doubled from 14,272 to 28,440. Mandating coverage has been seen as a way of reducing FAIR Plan enrollment.

“I’m disappointed this bill died in committee. Fire survivors deserved better,” Pérez said in a statement .

Also failing Monday in the committee was SB 982, a bill authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, (D-San Francisco). It would have authorized California’s attorney general to sue fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters. It was opposed by the oil and gas industry.

Passing the committee were two other Pérez bills. SB 877 requires insurers to provide more transparency in the claims process. SB 878 imposes a penalty on insurers who don’t make claims payments on time.

Another bill, SB 1301, authored by insurance commissioner candidate Sen. Ben Allen, (D-Pacific Palisades), also passed. It protects policyholders from unexplained and abrupt policy non-renewals.

Business

How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Published

15 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

How We Cover the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

Politicians in Washington and the reporters who cover them have an often adversarial relationship.

But on the last Saturday in April, they gather for an irreverent celebration of press freedom and the First Amendment at the Washington Hilton Hotel: The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Hosted by the association, an organization that helps ensure access for media outlets covering the presidency, the dinner attracts Hollywood stars; politicians from both parties; and representatives of more than 100 networks, newspapers, magazines and wire services.

While The Times will have two reporters in the ballroom covering the event, the company no longer buys seats at the party, said Richard W. Stevenson, the Washington bureau chief. The decision goes back almost two decades; the last dinner The Times attended as an organization was in 2007.

“We made a judgment back then that the event had become too celebrity-focused and was undercutting our need to demonstrate to readers that we always seek to maintain a proper distance from the people we cover, many of whom attend as guests,” he said.

It’s a decision, he added, that “we have stuck by through both Republican and Democratic administrations, although we support the work of the White House Correspondents’ Association.”

Susan Wessling, The Times’s Standards editor, said the policy is a product of the organization’s desire to maintain editorial independence.

“We don’t want to leave readers with any questions about our independence and credibility by seeming to be overly friendly with people whose words and actions we need to report on,” she said.

The celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman is headlining the evening, in lieu of the usual comedy set by the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, but all eyes will be on President Trump, who will make his first appearance at the dinner as president.

Mr. Trump has boycotted the event since 2011, when he was the butt of punchlines delivered by President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers mocking his hair, his reality TV show and his preoccupation with the “birther” movement.

Last month, though, Mr. Trump, who has a contentious relationship with the media, announced his intention to attend this year’s dinner, where he will speak to a room full of the same reporters he often derides as “enemies of the people.”

Times reporters will be there to document the highs, the lows and the reactions in the room. A reporter for the Styles desk has also been assigned to cover the robust roster of after-parties around Washington.

Some off-duty reporters from The Times will also be present at this late-night circuit, though everyone remains cognizant of their roles, said Patrick Healy, The Times’s assistant managing editor for Standards and Trust.

“If they’re reporting, there’s a notebook or recorder out as usual,” he said. “If they’re not, they’re pros who know they’re always identifiable as Times journalists.”

For most of The Times’s reporters and editors, though, the evening will be experienced from home.

“The rest of us will be able to follow the coverage,” Mr. Stevenson said, “without having to don our tuxes or gowns.”