Trading in Turbulence: Korea and Japan’s Responses to Trump’s Tariffs

Troy Stangarone

Industrial Economic Review from Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade

Abstract: This article by Troy Stangarone is part of a series of contributions to Industrial Economic Review celebrating KIET's 50th anniversary. Stangarone is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology and the former head of the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy. He is an expert on economic and foreign policy on the Korean peninsula.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 resulted in a significant departure in US trade policy. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been the leading advocate for trade liberalization, but under the Trump administration Washington has pulled back from economic openness, erecting new trade barriers and reinforcing existing ones, with the Trump tariffs being the signature policy of this new approach. The administration has also sought to leverage the large US market to extract concessions from trading partners. This pivot away from economic openness has necessitated that US allies such as South Korea and Japan recalibrate their approach to trade and economic engagement with the United States.

Keywords: trade; trade policy; free trade; trade barriers; Japan; South Korea; United States; China; Trump; Trump tariffs; trade competition; trade strategy; protectionism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F13 F23 F52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14
Date: 2026
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Published in KIET Industrial Economic Review Vol. 31, No. 2

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