The South Korean mayor who protested Trump’s steel tariffs outside the White House
POHANG, South Korea — As President Donald Trump makes his whirlwind trip through Asia, the warning from the mayor of South Korea’s steel hub is dire.
“If the tariffs continue like this,” Lee Kang-deok told NBC News in an interview Tuesday, “our city’s industry will collapse. And it will have a domino effect.”
South Korea, the world’s 10th largest economy, is trying to finalize a trade deal with the United States to lower tariffs on its products to 15 percent from 25 percent previously.
Trump said Wednesday that a trade deal had been “virtually finalized” with South Korea, while South Korean presidential adviser Kim Yong-beom said the two governments had “reached agreement on the detailed terms of tariff negotiations,” which include a South Korean commitment to invest $350 billion in the United States.
But Trump’s separate 50% levy on all steel products has devastated Pohang, a port city of about half a million people on South Korea’s southeastern coast.
Much like Pittsburgh, it is synonymous with the nation’s steel industry. Steel factories dot the shoreline. Its beaches are in their shadow.
The Pohang Iron and Steel Co. – which eventually became POSCO – is one of the world’s largest steel companies, producing more than 37 million tonnes of crude steel in 2024.
“South Korea and the United States have been good friends for a long time,” Lee said. “But it gives us the feeling that this friendship is transactional.”
Lee – who has been mayor for 11 years – said he would like Trump to come visit Pohang, which is just a 30-minute drive from Gyeongju, where the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will be held and where Trump addressed a CEO luncheon on Wednesday.
Earlier this year, Lee flew halfway around the world to Washington to protest Trump’s tariffs in front of the White House with other Pohang officials. They held signs in English that said, among other things: “Please stop imposing steel tariffs on your ally, the Republic of Korea,” referring to South Korea’s official name.
Lee said in a Facebook post after his protest that Pohang was “fighting to the death” and that if the steel industry collapsed, construction, automobiles, shipbuilding and energy would also collapse.
He said he felt he was defending not only his city, but also the global steel industry and the many indirect jobs it supports.
“We haven’t done as much as we hoped in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “But I think we sent a strong message to the whole world.”
As tariffs become significant, the South Korean government is preparing for long-term impacts and has declared Pohang an “industrial crisis response zone”, allowing the city to benefit from more subsidies.
“The entire economic system will be ruined,” Lee said in the interview, adding that while he believes the United States is doing this primarily because of competition with China, the tariffs hurt longtime allies such as South Korea and Japan.
“This could backfire.”
