Treasury Secretary Bessent says U.S. is nearing a final trade deal with South Korea

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the U.S. is getting close to finishing its trade deal with South Korea.

“I think we are about to finish up with Korea,” Mr. Bessent said in a wide-ranging discussion with CNBC’s Sara Eisen. “The devil is in the details.”

Seoul is trying to finalize a trade deal-in-principle it struck with the White House in late July.

Under the terms, the U.S. would impose a 15% tariff on South Korean goods, instead of a higher levy, and South Korea would invest $350 billion in U.S. projects.

The deal followed a template set by Japan, which called for Tokyo to invest $550 billion in U.S. projects at Mr. Trump’s discretion.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said the country needed safeguards to fulfill the $350 billion investment, such as a currency swap. He said South Korea would face a financial crisis without it.

Mr. Bessent said the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington this week would help them get closer to an agreement.

The meetings “bring a lot of people here, so we’ll be talking about that,” Mr. Bessent said.

U.S. officials will also head to Asia later this month for key meetings, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Seoul.

Mr. Bessent said he thinks Mr. Trump is still on track to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping at the APEC summit, despite recent trade tensions over export controls.

China stunned the world by clamping down on exports of rare earth elements and other products earlier this month.

Mr. Bessent chafed at Chinese officials who said they had no choice but to crack down after the U.S. imposed docking fees on Chinese ships at American ports.

“This is clearly something that they were planning all along. I think that things can de-escalate,” Mr. Bessent said. “We don’t want to have to escalate. We have things that are more powerful than the rare earth export controls that the Chinese want to put on.”

The Treasury secretary said the Chinese rely on American semiconductors, aircraft engines and certain minerals.

The trade tensions have upset Wall Street, though Mr. Bessent said stocks won’t dictate the administration’s policy.

“We won’t negotiate because the stock market is going down,” the secretary said. “We will negotiate because we are doing what is best, economically, for the U.S.”

Mr. Bessent also said people should realize that Europe and other places are grappling with China’s actions.

“This is China versus the world, it’s not a U.S.-China problem,” Mr. Bessent said. “Bureaucrats in China cannot manage the supply chain or the manufacturing process for the rest of the world.”