BY JIHOON LEE
SEOUL – South Korea has found increased attempts to disguise foreign products as Korean exports, primarily from China, to avoid US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, its customs agency said on Monday.
The Korea Customs Service said it has found 29.5 billion won ($20.81 million) worth of violations related to country of origin from the first quarter, with US-bound shipments accounting for 97 percent of the total, after a special probe last month.
That compared to a total of 34.8 billion won worth of violations for all of 2024, among which US-bound shipments accounted for 62 percent.
Trump, who took office in January, has imposed significant tariffs on various products and countries, including those on China that began to rise from February.
“There was a rise in disguised export attempts during Trump’s first presidency and we expect there to be a similar trend,” said Lee Kwang-woo, investigation planning director at the KCS.
Anticipating increased risks, authorities conducted the latest investigation preemptively to prevent illegal exports. They have already found signs of such attempts to avoid Trump’s tariffs from the first quarter, Lee said during a media briefing.
On Monday, South Korean customs officials held a meeting with US officials to discuss joint investigation efforts.
South Korean officials have said there could be a rise in attempts by foreign companies, such as those in neighbouring China, to use South Korea, which is a major US ally and has a free-trade pact, as a bypass to avoid tariffs and regulations.
Trump slapped 25 percent tariffs on South Korea this month, among a new set of sweeping levies, which were later suspended for three months. The US now imposes 145 percent tariffs on China after back-and-forth retaliatory actions, which economists say have severed trade between the world’s two biggest economies.
