미 백악관, 중국 상품 ‘환적 위험’ 국가에 한국 지목

The White House has designated 40-some countries, including South Korea, as "high-risk countries" for evading tariffs on Chinese products through fictitious trade. The Trade Policy Office of the White House released a report on "massive trade fraud" on the 13th, arguing that Chinese products exported from third countries after undergoing simple assembly, packaging, or label replacement have been increasingly spreading.

The report classified these countries into three types based on economic size and the depth of integration with the Chinese supply chain. South Korea falls under Type 1, which has a large volume of Chinese-linked products, a diversified industrial base, and developed export platforms to the U.S. The report warned that illegal trade may mix with normal trade flows in these countries.

The report included South Korea, Canada, the European Union (EU), India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan among these countries. All of them are major trade partners of the U.S. and closely integrated countries in the Chinese supply chain. Type 2 includes countries closely integrated with Chinese production, supply chains, raw material procurement, manufacturing platforms, logistics networks, or smuggled export routes.

Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam are among them. Type 3 includes smaller countries such as Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. The report stated that while the scale of trade fraud in these countries is relatively small, Chinese-linked products can be used as smuggled export routes. The report noted that the tariff differences depend on the smuggling route, and Chinese products may qualify for duty-free treatment in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), making tariffs near zero or close to zero when passing through Mexico, Canada, and the EU.

The report also explained that the EU, Japan, Vietnam, and South Korea's routes would maintain much lower tariffs than those directly applied in China. The report provided examples of specific cases of potential illegal trade exposure for individual countries and products. South Korea was cited as potentially losing significant revenue from the distribution of "other integrated circuits" through its semiconductor belt, which could pressure semiconductor production in U.S. cities like Phoenix, Austin, Portland, and San Jose.

However, the report did not provide specific companies, factories, or ports in South Korea or actual detection cases of trade fraud. The White House estimated the potential scale of illegal Chinese trade to be around $40 billion to $300 billion annually, resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars in lost tariffs. In response, the White House plans to build a "detective border" system using AI to analyze shipping routes and origin information, aiming to strengthen trade detection.