US President touts new trade deal with South Korea during Asia tour

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.

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“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.

“Prospects were not bright even last night, and there was dramatic progress on the day,” Kim Yong-beom, South Korea's top presidential policy chief, told reporters, without providing further details.

Trump and Lee agreed that Seoul can split its promised $350 billion investment fund into $200 billion in cash to be paid in instalments and capped at $20 billion per year, Lee's aides said.

The other $150 billion is to be spent on investments in shipbuilding, which South Korea has promised to help Trump restore.

The South Koreans said the two sides agreed to split profits 50/50 before the initial investments are recouped, and to only pursue commercially viable projects. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick would head an investment committee to assess potential projects.