South Korea's Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan has called on Washington to ease tariffs on specialised steelmaking equipment needed for a $5.8 billion steel mill being built in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, by a South Korean consortium. The minister made the appeal at a meeting with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, on the sidelines of a groundbreaking ceremony for Hyundai-POSCO Louisiana Steel LLC — a joint venture between Hyundai Steel, Hyundai Motor, Kia, and steelmaker POSCO — which faces import duties under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (a US national-security trade mechanism). The facility, expected to begin commercial production in 2029, will be the first electric arc furnace steel mill in the US dedicated to automotive steel and is projected to produce 2.7 million tonnes annually while cutting carbon emissions by roughly 70 percent compared with conventional blast-furnace methods.