Seoul and Washington have reached an agreement “in principle” that would revise the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), South Korea’s trade ministry confirmed this week. The tentative agreement reportedly includes concessions from the Asian country on trade in automobiles and establishes a quota on Korean steel exports bound for the United States. South Korea will be the first country to be granted an indefinite exemption from the metal tariffs levied by the US under Section 232 of its Trade Expansion Act, which entered into force on Friday 23 March. (See Bridges Weekly, 8 March 2018 and related story in this edition). In lieu of the 25 percent tariff on imported steel, the partners negotiated a quota to limit Korean steel exports to the United States to 2.68 million tonnes per year, which officials say amounts to approximately 70 percent of the average of US-bound exports over the last three years. "We welcome the results of negotiations on the Korea-US FTA and steel tariffs," said Yoon Young-chan, senior presidential press secretary, according to comments reported by Yonhap. "We express our respect to our negotiating team for their perfect win-win negotiations," he continued, adding that the agreement served to solidify “the foundation...