US official says 'tariffs' not the only issue dictating trade amid worries about Trump's policy

Washington, Nov 22 (IANS) A senior US diplomat said that tariffs are "not the only issue" that will "make or break" trade, as concerns have lingered over President-elect Donald Trump's election-year proposal for sweeping tariffs on US imports that could affect trade with South Korea and other partners.

Matt Murray, the US senior official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) at the State Department, made the remarks as he addressed a question about whether the APEC platform can serve as an effective forum to help prevent the potential emergence of trade protectionism, Yonhap news agency reported.

"Tariffs are not the only issue that make or break trade. We need supply chain resiliency. We need trade facilitation. We need good governance. We need anti-corruption. We need good rules around customs and border protection," he said during the briefing hosted by the Foreign Press Center.

"We need to enable digital trade. We need to make sure that we're all talking about rules around e-commerce and cross-border data flows and all of these things ... You can have discussions about tariffs (at APEC), but you can also have discussions about a lot of other things that constitute good economic and trade relations," he added.

He stressed that APEC has a "multi-faceted" approach to trade and that it has a "built-in" opportunity for its 21 member economies to come together every year to talk about the challenges facing them.

On the stump, Trump underscored his pursuit of tariffs on foreign goods, a move that would affect trade ties with South Korea and other partners.

The president-elect has said he might slap tariffs of up to 20 per cent on all US imports while proposing a 60 per cent tariff on Chinese goods.

Commenting on South Korea's planned hosting of the APEC summit next year, Murray said that the Asian country is "very well placed" to lead the APEC agenda, involving a wide range of topics, including supply chains.

"I think when it comes to the APEC agenda, if you talk about interconnected trade and supply chains, if you talk about innovation, digitalization, if you talk about sustainable and inclusive growth, then Korea is very well placed to lead that agenda and share that agenda next year as the host," he said.

He pledged that Washington will be supportive of South Korea's chair role next year.

"We want to be supportive of the chair as much as possible," he said. "I think particularly given that we were the chair just a year ago, we also are very understanding of a lot of the pressures both in the region and also domestically that come with chairing APEC, and so we want to be as supportive as possible."

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