Trump Raises Tariffs on South Korean Imports to 25% Over Unratified 2025 Trade Framework

Trump’s tariff snap-back echoes President Nixon’s unexpected 10 % “import surcharge” of August 1971—both moves were unilateral, sudden and aimed at forcing allies’ economic concessions. Structurally, it reflects a 21st-century drift away from multilateral WTO rules toward personalized, transaction-based “frameworks” that mingle trade policy with inward-investment pledges. By tying tariff relief to a promised US$350 billion cash infusion, Washington is reviving 1930s-style quid-pro-quo economics and the 2020 China ‘Phase One’ purchase targets, signaling that market access is now rented, not granted. The moment matters because the U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing whether the 1977 IEEPA actually lets a president wield tariffs as an open-ended club; if the Court upholds that power, future occupants of the White House—regardless of party—could routinely weaponize 25 % duties, accelerating the century-long erosion of rules-based trade that began with Smoot-Hawley (1930) and intermittently resurfaces whenever domestic politics trump global integration.