South Korea said it planned to intensify trade talks with the United States and considered U.S. President Donald Trump's plan for a 25% tariff from August 1 as effectively extending a grace period on implementing the duties.

The country’s new president, in office for a little over a month, had just dispatched his senior deputies to Washington to try to work out a trade deal.

Over the past three months, nations across the world tried to avoid new tariffs that would punish their economies by giving President Donald Trump something he might want. Indonesia offered to buy $34 billion more