Korea presses G20 on fair trade, resilient supply chains

South Korea's trade chief told a G20 trade ministers' meeting in Milwaukee this week that global steel overcapacity and supply-chain disruptions require coordinated action built on WTO rules and market principles, the industry ministry said Friday.

Trade Minister Park Jung-sung attended the G20 Trade Ministers' Meeting held from Wednesday to Thursday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, along with a ministerial meeting of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said. Park also held bilateral talks with the United States, China, the European Union, Britain, Japan, India and other major economies on trade issues and supply-chain cooperation.

At the GFSEC ministerial meeting on Wednesday morning, Park said resolving overcapacity should rest on voluntary corporate restructuring and WTO-consistent trade remedies. "It is important to observe basic principles such as voluntary corporate restructuring and trade remedy measures based on WTO rules in order to resolve overcapacity," Park said. He added that member countries' efforts to maintain sound market order must not lead to excessive protection that falls outside international norms.

The forum adopted a ministerial statement and a framework agreement calling for the resolution of overcapacity and the restoration of fair competition. The framework agreement covers information sharing on overcapacity, collection of crude steel origin data and cooperation on trade remedies. The GFSEC, launched in 2016, has 28 members including Korea, the United States, the EU and Japan. Global excess capacity is projected to reach 745 million tons by 2028, the highest level in a decade.

Park introduced Korea's three policy directions for its steel industry: voluntary capacity rationalization by companies, creating fair competition conditions, and securing future competitiveness through low-carbon and high-value products.

In the G20 plenary sessions, Park addressed food weaponization, structural overcapacity, reform of the most-favored-nation principle and forced labor in global supply chains. On food security, he said food must never be used as a means of economic or political coercion, and that responding to food weaponization requires an inclusive approach that considers both exporting and importing countries.

On structural overcapacity, Park said the problem is not limited to specific industries and can affect global supply chains as a whole. He said Korea responds to overcapacity based on market principles, allowing companies and production facilities that have lost competitiveness to exit and restructure rather than being artificially maintained, and building an institutional basis for voluntary restructuring in steel and petrochemicals. He said existing trade remedies alone cannot fully resolve structural overcapacity, but that a rules-based approach must be maintained, and called for sharing objective information and policy experience across borders.

On MFN reform, Park said the Korean economy has developed on the basis of the principle and stressed its importance, while noting the question of whether negotiated benefits must be extended equally to all WTO members even when some fail to fully implement agreed obligations. "MFN rules may change, but the rule of law that underpins the international trade order itself must not be undermined," Park said. He said open plurilateral cooperation, in which willing members first establish new rules, could be a practical alternative given the WTO's rigid consensus practice.

On forced labor, Park said it is a matter of human dignity and basic rights, and that voluntary corporate supply-chain due diligence and risk management, alongside a reliable information base, are important to responding effectively to risks in complex global supply chains.

On the sidelines, Park asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to respect the 15 percent tariff agreement and agreed to coordinate a schedule for the Korea-U.S. joint committee after the first U.S. investment project was announced. He also met EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič, British Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Turkish Trade Minister Ömer Bolat to discuss trade issues including London's new steel measures and Ankara's import restrictions. Park discussed rare earths and critical mineral supply chains with China's international trade representative Li Chenggang, and with Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal proposed pushing CEPA improvement talks to a high level. He asked Australia to support 18 ongoing mineral investment projects and to keep existing LNG contracts stable, and confirmed Indonesian support for POSCO's local joint steel venture.