President Donald Trump on Tuesday (Jan 27) said the United States and South Korea will work out a solution when asked about his surprise Monday announcement that he would increase tariffs on imports from the Asian country to 25 per cent.

“We’ll work something out with South Korea,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House to give a speech in Iowa. He did not elaborate.

Trump’s chief trade negotiator, Jamieson Greer, told Fox Business Network’s Kudlow program that he spoke with South Korean officials early Tuesday and would meet with their trade officials in Washington later this week.

“I think that they are getting the message,” US Trade Representative Greer said. “We have nothing in particular against Korea. They’re an ally. But when it comes to the economics of all of this, it has to be balanced.”

Greer said the US trade deficit with South Korea had ballooned to US$65 billion during the previous Biden administration and that was “not sustainable and it has to change”.

In a social media post on Monday, Trump said he was raising US duties on imports of South Korean autos and other goods because the Asian ally’s parliament had not lived up to its part of a deal he had reached with its president last year.

The news rattled officials in Seoul, who said they were caught by surprise and left them scrambling to find a response to what could be a blow for the export-heavy country.

Greer told Fox Business that the US had reduced its tariff rate on South Korean goods to 15 per cent from the 25 per cent rate initially planned in exchange for Seoul’s pledge to invest US$350 billion in the United States, allow more US cars into South Korea, and eliminate some non-tariff barriers on agriculture.