S. Korea to suspend tariff concessions on US imports

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The World Trade Organization (WTO) said Friday that the Republic of Korea (ROK) is to suspend tariff concessions on certain goods from the United States due to tariffs imposed by Washington on solar cells and washing machines responsible for around 1.4 billion US dollars in annual trade.

"The Republic of Korea notifies the Council for Trade in Goods that it has decided to suspend substantially equivalent concessions and other obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 to the trade of the United States," a WTO notice said.

The measures are in response to US safeguard measures against imported solar cells and residential washers, according to WTO official documents filed in Geneva by the ROK, notifying that its measures apply to "equivalent concessions" which are not yet named.

The US administration decided in January to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent on imported washers for the next three years, and up to 30 percent on solar cells and modules for the next four years.

In its documents, the ROK said the US measures affect almost 304 million dollars in washing machine products on which Washington collected 152 million dollars in duties in 2017, and 1.1 billion US dollars of solar panel imports which accrued duties to the Americans of 330 million US dollars in 2017.

"The suspension of concessions and other obligations will continue to apply until the United States' safeguard measure is lifted," the ROK added.

Separately, the ROK issued a complaint at the WTO on Feb. 21, challenging the US use of anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties relating to steel and transformer products.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency