U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has voiced opposition to initiating negotiations with South Korea on the U.S.' import quota on South Korean steel products.

The U.S. trade chief presented the position on Wednesday when she and South Korean trade minister Yeo Han-koo visited a factory of SK Siltron in Michigan, a semiconductor material producer under South Korea's SK Group.

Asked if the U.S. has any intention to negotiate with South Korea on the matter, Tai told reporters that South Korea was actually already in a better position than many others and it has already received an accommodation.

She emphasized that South Korea was one of the first countries to secure an accommodation in terms of the steel and aluminum import tariff actions.

The USTR chief said that the quota system allows imports of South Korean steel products without tariffs, which is not applied to most of the U.S' other trade partners. 

The remarks came amid South Korea's efforts to initiate consultations with the U.S. to revise the Section 232 tariff rules on the nation’s steel exports. Recently, President Biden struck deals with Japan and the European Union to partially lift the tariffs imposed on their products.

In 2018, the U.S. waived the tariffs on South Korean steel products, instead implementing a quota that restricts the quantity of steel articles imported from South Korea to 70 percent of average shipments between 2015 and 2017, or about two-point-seven million tons.