South Korea requests to be excluded from Trump’s efforts to increase tariffs

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean officials have asked the Trump administration to exclude their country from U.S. plans to impose aggressive tariffs on trade partners, emphasizing that Seoul is already applying low duties on American products under the free trade agreement between the two nations. South Korea's government on Friday said Deputy Trade Minister Park Jong-won made the request while traveling to Washington this week for meetings with unspecified officials from the White House, the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The South Korean Trade Ministry didn't say what Park heard from the…