Washington asks Seoul to help curb China’s dominance in global shipbuilding, official says

The United States wants South Korea to join a coordinated push to limit China’s fast-growing share of the world shipbuilding market, Seoul’s trade ministry said on Friday, tying the request to talks over 25 % tariffs on steel, cars and other goods.

Trade Policy Director Chang Sung-gil told a parliamentary forum that U.S. negotiators “feel a sense of crisis that China’s market share is rising” and see South Korea, the No 2 shipbuilding nation, as a “strategic partner” in efforts to counter Beijing.

Washington, he said, is asking Seoul to cooperate not only in ship construction itself but in unspecified “other areas” as a precondition for deeper industrial collaboration. The Biden administration also wants South Korea to increase purchases of U.S. energy and farm products in exchange for discussing a rollback of reciprocal 25 % tariffs imposed under Section 232 in 2018.

China’s foreign ministry urged both allies to avoid deals that harm third-party interests. “No agreement or negotiation should harm the interests of third parties,” spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in Beijing on Friday.

The rivalry comes as China has captured more than 50 % of the global order book for new vessels, while South Korea holds roughly one-third, according to Clarkson Research Service data. The U.S. builds few commercial ships but fears Chinese dominance could give Beijing leverage over critical maritime supply chains.

South Korean officials say any pact must balance national sensitivities about importing additional U.S. farm goods—always a contentious issue in Seoul—and protect the domestic steel industry, which faces the same U.S. tariffs it has lobbied to remove.

Industry analysts expect the talks to intensify ahead of a possible summit later this year, but warn that aligning on both trade and strategic objectives will be difficult. “Seoul relies heavily on Chinese components even as it competes for hull orders,” said Park Jin-woo, a logistics professor at Korea Maritime University. “Decoupling at the shipyard gate will not be straightforward.”

Neither the U.S. Trade Representative’s office nor South Korea’s industry ministry has publicly commented on the substance of the private discussions.

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