Commerce Secretary Predicts IPEF Completion This Year

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, whose agency is negotiating three of four pillars of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, said: "We believe that this year we will be able to finalize the IPEF."

The IPEF, which includes Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, is not designed to lower tariffs, but is designed to knit supply chains, harmonize digital trade regulations and improve trade facilitation among its partners. (India is not party to the trade pillar, which covers digital trade and is expected to include commitments on labor).

Raimondo was speaking at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-Korean Federation of Industries event April 25 in Washington. South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol also spoke at the event and noted through a translator that bilateral trade between the U.S. and South Korea has grown 90% in the last dozen years since their free trade agreement took effect. But he said the bilateral investments should expand "to build more stable and resilient supply chains." Yoon said South Korea's battery companies are going to make the U.S. an electric vehicle manufacturing hub, and he said leading U.S. biology companies are expanding investments in his country.

Korean Federation of Industries Chairman Byongjoon Kim, who also spoke through an interpreter, said cooperation on semiconductors and batteries has been tremendous, but cooperation in biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other new technologies should become just as strong.