Bessent holds introductory call with Korea deputy premier

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has held his introductory call with South Korea's deputy prime minister, Treasury said, as Seoul manages a weak won and a heavy week of meetings in Bangkok.

Why it matters: First contacts set the channel for everything harder, currency, chips and shipbuilding, and Seoul will read the readout's omissions as carefully as its content.

Data as of US Treasury readout sb0655, issued this week, covering Bessent's introductory call with the Republic of Korea's deputy prime minister. The Treasury site could not be opened directly; written from the release title and standing context.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has held an introductory call with South Korea’s deputy prime minister, the Treasury said in a readout, a first formal contact that comes with the won among the world’s weakest currencies this year and Seoul deep in the Bangkok meetings.

Introductory calls of this kind are diplomatic plumbing, but the pairing matters: Korea’s exporters sit at the centre of the semiconductor and shipbuilding trades Washington is trying to reshape, and its central bank governor is in Bangkok this week publicly concerned about capital flows and the exchange rate. Currency language in any readout from this channel is read tick by tick in Seoul.

The call also fills in the picture of Bessent’s week. Absent from the G20 session itself, where deputies led the US delegation, he has worked the bilateral track and issued the US statement to the World Bank Development Committee.

Bessent holds introductory call with Korea deputy premier

Sources