Seoul: South Korea's food exports to the United States posted the first on-year decline in around two years in July, due to Washington's sweeping tariff scheme, data showed Wednesday. The country exported US$139 million worth of agricultural goods and food products to the U.S. last month, down 6.7 percent from the same month last year, according to the data from the Korea Trade Statistics Promotion Institute.
According to Yonhap News Agency, it marks the first time since May 2023 that the country's food exports to the U.S. dropped from a year earlier. By item, shipments of instant noodles, or "ramyeon" in Korean, one of the key export items, retreated 17.8 percent on-year to $14 million. Exports of snacks fell by an even greater margin of 25.9 percent to $20 million, while those of sauces and ginseng dipped 7.2 percent and 13.4 percent on-year, respectively.
Cumulative exports to the U.S. in the January-July period grew 21.3 percent from the same period last year. The growth rate, however, slowed sharply from a 27 percent on-year growth for the January-June period.