Trump aide claims S. Korea, Japan closed markets to U.S. cars, defends auto tariffs

A senior aide to U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that South Korea, Japan and the European Union (EU) closed their markets to U.S. cars, as he stressed trade deficits with those countries and defended the Trump administration’s new auto tariffs.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff or Policy Stephen Miller made the remarks, warning that the United States automotive industry might disappear within a few years if the “current path” continues.

The Trump administration started imposing 25 percent tariffs on imported automobiles on April 3, with 25 duties on certain auto parts planned to come by Saturday. But earlier this week, Trump signed a proclamation to give two-year auto part tariff relief to companies that assemble cars in the U.S.

“Japan closed their market to our cars. The entire EU closed their market to our cars. South Korea closed their market to our cars,” he told a press briefing, highlighting America’s large-scale trade deficits in automobile trade with them.

“These are supposedly peer nations — nations that have at least a somewhat equivalent per capita gross domestic product (GDP). So it is impossible out of the terms of fair trade, if you have two nations with similar per-capital GDP to have such uneven trade flows in automobiles,” he added.

He reiterated that if companies want to sell cars tariff-free to the U.S. market, “your plant has to operate in the U.S.”

“The only alternative to that is to have no U.S. automobile industry whatsoever, which is where this was headed,” he said.

“To be clear, if we stayed on this current path, within a few years, there would have been no U.S. automobile industry,” he added.

South Korea has been seeking auto tariff exemptions through trade talks with the U.S.

The U.S. is a top auto export market for South Korea. Of South Korea’s total car exports last year, exports to the U.S. were tallied at $34.7 billion, or 49.1 percent. Hyundai Motor Group and GM Korea exported around 970,000 and 410,000 units to the U.S., respectively, last year.