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Donald Trump displays the executive order imposing trade safeguards on South Korean washing machines and solar cells and modules that he signed at the White House on Jan. 23. (Yonhap News)

US President Donald Trump said on Jan. 23 that US safeguards (emergency import restriction measures) on South Korean-made washing machines and solar cells and modules will “provide a strong incentive for LG and Samsung to follow through on their recent promises to build major manufacturing plants for washing machines right here in the United States.”

“We’re going to benefit our consumers, and we’re going to create a lot of jobs,” Trump said in signing an order imposing the safeguards that afternoon at the White House.

“When we do this, a lot of manufacturers will be coming to the United States to build washing machines and also solar,” Trump continued.

“These executive actions...demonstrate to the world that the United States will not be taken advantage of anymore,” he declared.

Trump’s remarks are being read as an admission that South Korean washing machines and Chinese solar products are to be the first scapegoats as “America first” protectionist trade measures manifest this year.

Trump also made reference to the South Korea-US Free Trade agreement, announcing that the US was “renegotiating our deal with South Korea, which has turned out to be a disaster for this country.”

“It was a deal that was going to create 200,000 jobs, and we lost 200,000 jobs,” he said of the FTA.

At a press briefing the same day in connection with the Pyeongchang Olympics, Center For Strategic and International Studies senior vice president for Asia Michael Green said, “From a North Korean perspective . . . you would be quite happy that the Trump administration is attacking the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement.”

Stressing that North Korea’s wedge strategy with Seoul and Washington “probably won’t” work, Green warned that “Washington is making it more likely to work.”

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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