Top U.S. trade official to visit S. Korea next week for talks on IRA, Chips Act

United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai will visit South Korea next week for talks on U.S. acts on semiconductors and electric vehicles (EVs), as well as other pending bilateral issues, officials said Friday.

Tai will attend the two-day Summit for Democracy set to begin Wednesday, which will be co-hosted by the U.S., South Korea, the Netherlands, Costa Rica and Zambia, according to Seoul government officials.

While in Seoul, Tai is scheduled to have talks with Seoul’s Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun, during which the two sides are expected to discuss the impact of the U.S.’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Chips and Science Act on South Korean companies, among other issues.

She last visited South Korea in November 2021.

The IRA calls for excluding EVs assembled outside of North America from tax incentives, raising concerns that Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. will lose ground in the U.S. market as they make EVs at domestic plants for export to the U.S.

Seoul and Washington have also been in close consultations on the details of the Chips Act, which offers subsidies to chipmakers that invest in new production facilities in the U.S. while limiting significant expansion of manufacturing capacity of recipients in China.