Trump has been focusing on tariffs since he took office, but the direction and ultimate goal remain unclear → It is essential to understand Trump's true intentions in order to predict the future direction.

Stephen Miran, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) for the White House, said that paying the share of issuing the reserve currency is ‘Trump-style fairness’ and a necessary condition for the revival of U.S. manufacturing as Trump envisions it.

• Trump sees the fundamental limitations of the reserve currency (inelastic demand for the dollar) as the cause of the deepening trade deficit and loss of export competitiveness, which have led to the collapse of U.S. manufacturing.

• He believes that the realization of MAGA (Make America Great Again), meaning the revival of manufacturing, begins with maintaining the dollar's status as the reserve currency while recovering the benefits that major countries have enjoyed from the reserve currency.

For Trump, tariffs are both a direct solution for realizing MAGA and a “reinforcing agent” that supports the use of other policy tools.

• Chairman Miran has proposed a combination of “tariffs (improving the trade deficit) + currency adjustment (managing the strong dollar)” as a strategy for reorganizing the international trade system to achieve Trump's goals.

• He argues that tariffs are not only a core tool in themselves, but can also be used as a bargaining chip to pressure other countries into adjusting their currencies and security costs (another way to recover the benefits of the reserve currency).

Main keywords for the future implementation of Trump's tariffs: ▲ Gradualism ▲ Differentiation ▲ Complexity

• The method of gradual implementation, which proved its effectiveness (maximizing threat while minimizing impact) in the first term, will be applied comprehensively across Trump's entire tariff front.

• Tariffs will be imposed differentially depending on the level of response from other countries to Trump's complex intentions (covering both trade and non-trade issues), with reciprocal tariffs serving as the central system.

• High inflation and financial instability could dilute the effects of Trump's tariffs, which will determine the momentum for policy implementation.

The spread of protectionism for the reorganization of the US-centered supply chain is now a structural change unrelated to any Administration, so a mid- to long-term strategy that considers both the market and supply chain aspects is necessary.

• The setting of U.S.-China relations in Trump's second term is expected to be a major variable in Korea-U.S. negotiations.

• The Korean government and industry need to establish a mid- to long-term strategy for utilizing the U.S. that considers both market and supply chain aspects, and systematically respond to U.S. pressure on tariffs, defense spending, and currency adjustments.