Trump announces trade breakthrough with S Korea

Seoul agrees to invest $350 bn in US in return for lower tariff rates, Lee also asks Trump to revise decades-old nuclear pact

- REUTERS

US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung finalised details of their fraught trade deal at a summit in South Korea on Wednesday, and the US president also sounded an optimistic note about a looming summit with China's Xi Jinping.

“We made our deal, pretty much finalised it,” Trump said at a dinner with Lee and other regional leaders on the sidelines of an Asia Pacific forum.

The allies unveiled a deal in late July under which Seoul would avoid the worst of US tariffs on its imports by agreeing to pump $350 billion of new investments into the United States in return for lower tariff rates.

But talks over the structure of those investments had been deadlocked and both sides had played down expectations for a deal during Trump’s visit.