Peter Navarro accuses South Korea of sending subsidized and transshipped steel to US

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro accused South Korea on October 8 of flooding the United States with subsidized steel and steel transshipped from China, saying Washington was ‘cracking down.’ His public statement adds pressure to a trade dispute affecting steel shipments between the two countries, but the available accounts identify no new US measure or verified violation.

‘South Korea is inundating the U.S. with highly subsidized steel and steel transshipped from China,’ Navarro, the White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, wrote in a social-media post quoted by Yonhap News Agency. ‘We are cracking down,’ he added. Those are Navarro’s allegations; Yonhap’s report does not present an official finding that South Korean exporters evaded tariffs.

What Navarro said about South Korean steel

Navarro had made a similar accusation while speaking to reporters outside the White House on October 6. In a published transcript of those remarks, he singled out South Korea after discussing trade deficits and what he called a Chinese transshipment scheme involving Vietnam, Thailand and Mexico. He said South Korea was sending the US highly subsidized steel and steel transshipped from China.

Navarro said that, despite what he described as 50% steel tariffs, the imports were ‘blowing past’ the duties ‘because they cheat.’ He said the administration would ‘be doing something about that.’ The transcript records his claim and promise, but does not provide evidence establishing a South Korean tariff violation or describe the action he had in mind.

US steel industry reports rising imports

The American Iron and Steel Institute, which represents US steel producers, had already asked federal officials to address South Korean imports. In a September 28 statement, it said it warned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer of a surge in shipments despite existing tariffs. Its statement supplies industry figures for import volumes; it does not prove Navarro’s separate allegations of subsidies or Chinese transshipment.

The institute said US imports of South Korean long steel products, including construction rebar, reached 145,300 tons in July 2026. It compared that with 22,100 tons in July 2024 and described the more recent level as a record, about six times the earlier figure. Those figures come from the industry association and are not independently audited in the material available for this report.

The group also described increases in South Korean pipe and tube shipments and flat-rolled steel imports, without giving comparable quantities for those categories in its published statement. It urged the administration to act and called for an investigation into the causes of the increase. That request does not establish that federal officials have opened one.

How existing US steel tariffs apply

Steel imports already face US trade measures under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. A June 1 White House proclamation describes national-security-based duties on specified metal products. It lists a 50% duty for certain metal articles, a 25% duty for certain derivative products and a temporarily reduced 15% duty for a subset of derivatives. The applicable treatment depends on the product and its origin, so Navarro’s reference to 50% should not be read as a universal rate for South Korean steel.

The proclamation says the changes took effect on June 8, 2026, and directs officials to keep monitoring metal imports for circumstances that might warrant further presidential action. That standing instruction offers a route for a later policy decision, but it is not an announcement of a new response to Navarro’s October accusation.

South Korean investment adds another trade concern

The dispute also sits alongside South Korean investment in US manufacturing. Yonhap reported that South Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan urged Washington in September to consider difficulties faced by Korean companies investing in the United States, including tariffs on equipment and materials they need to ship from South Korea.

Yonhap also reported that Hyundai-POSCO Louisiana Steel LLC broke ground in September on an electric-arc-furnace steel mill in Louisiana, with completion scheduled for 2029. The project is part of Hyundai Motor Group’s announced $26 billion US investment plan; POSCO has a 20% stake. The reporting does not connect that project to any alleged evasion.