President Donald Trump and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said on Thursday that negotiations over a potential trade agreement with South Korea are making progress.
Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs via an April 9 post on Truth Social that also announced substantial increases on tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, a week after he initially unveiled the duties on imports. Bessent said that the talks with South Korea had gone “faster” than he expected.
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“Yes, I will,” Trump said when asked if he would be meeting world leaders while in Italy to attend the funeral of Pope Francis. “I would like to meet them all. That would be nice. I would like to take care of all of them. Many of them there. They all want to meet. They want to meet about trade. We are making some great inroads and deals if you want to speak about that.”
“We had a very successful bilateral meeting with South Korea today,” Bessent added. “We may be moving faster than I thought. We will be talking technical terms as early as next week, as we reach an agreement on understanding as soon as next week. South Koreans came early, they came with their A game. We will see if they follow through.”
Vice President J.D. Vance and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the United States and India had reached agreement on a roadmap for negotiations while Vance visited India following a trip to Italy, where he met with Pope Francis shortly before the pontiff’s death.
Trump campaigned on imposing tariffs to help boost manufacturing in the United States, with dozens of countries reportedly seeking to negotiate with the Trump administration since the reciprocal tariffs were announced, according to his April 9 post on Truth Social announcing the 90-day pause.
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