Seoul, Aug 2 (IANS) South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun has met US senators and White House officials to discuss alliance and security issues, including North Korea’s nuclear programme, his ministry said Saturday, after the two countries reached a tariff deal this week.

Cho met Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and spoke with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) by phone Friday during his visit to Washington for talks with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, earlier in the week, according to the ministry.

Yesterday, Cho met with US senators and underscored efforts to bolster “strategic economic cooperation” with Washington, building on the recent tariff deal reached between the countries.

Cho made the remarks during his meetings with Republican Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Jim Risch (R-ID) in Washington on Thursday, following his talks with Rubio.

Wicker serves as chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and Risch is the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Yonhap news agency reported.

“Minister Cho voiced hope that the two countries will strengthen their strategic economic cooperation relationship encompassing key areas, such as shipbuilding, energy, semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), based on the tariff agreement,” the ministry said in a release.

On Thursday (US time), the allies agreed to lower the US reciprocal tariff rate for South Korea to 15 per cent from the originally proposed 25 per cent. South Korea, in return, committed to investing US$350 billion in US industries.

Cho told the senators that the new Lee Jae Myung government will work with Washington to advance the alliance with the US “under the three pillars of security, the economy, and science and technologies,” the ministry said.

The senators, in turn, reaffirmed strong bipartisan support for the South Korea-US alliance and said they will spare no effort to ensure close cooperation continues and expands between the two countries, according to the ministry.

–IANS

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