[앵커]
The United States, the European Union and the EU have agreed to pursue an international agreement to contain China in the steel and aluminum industries.
The impact on Korea is noteworthy.
Reporter Won-bae Kim reports.
[기자]
The United States, the European Union, and the EU announced in a joint statement on the 31st of last month that the two sides had resolved the dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs.
The two sides plan to negotiate for the first time on a global agreement to address carbon intensity and global oversupply.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump escalated trade tensions in 2018 by applying tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum imported by the United States to the EU, China and Japan.
At that time, Korea accepted a quota limiting exports to 70% of the average volume of the previous three years instead of exempting it from the 25% tariff on steel.
For this reason, the amount of Korean steel exports to the US, which was 3.83 million tons per year from 2015 to 2017, fell sharply to 2 million tons.
The agreement between the US and the EU appears to be aimed at building a global common front that will strengthen environmental standards in steel and aluminum production in the long term to exclude products made in China, which have relatively loose environmental standards.
The US focus has been on keeping China in check by strictly enforcing carbon emission standards for steel so that only products that meet the standards can be exported to the US.
President Biden held a brief meeting in Rome, Italy, where the G20 summit was held, emphasizing that “dirty steel from countries like China will be restricted from accessing the U.S. market.”
[조 바이든 / 미국 대통령 : 미국과 EU는 미국인의 일자리와 산업을 보호하면서 기후변화의 실존적 위협에 대응할 중대한 돌파구를 마련했습니다.]
The US and EU are expected to induce other countries to participate in this agreement by making stronger standards, so the impact it will have on Korea is noteworthy.
EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrowskis told reporters that he would “invite like-minded countries to join the deal”.
This is YTN Kim Won-bae.
YTN Wonbae Kim (wbkim@ytn.co.kr)
[저작권자(c) YTN & YTN plus 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]
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