SEOUL: China, South Korea and Japan on Sunday agreed to strengthen free trade in the light of a number of new tariffs introduced by US President Donald Trump.

The agreement came at a meeting with the best trade officials – the first at this level of five years – days prior to the start of tariffs on a large selection of US imports, including cars, trucks and car parts.

South Korea and Japan are major auto exporters, while China has also been severely affected by the US tariffs.

The meeting attended South Korea’s industry minister Ahn Duk-Geun, his Japanese colleague Yoji Muto and China’s Wang Wentao.

The three countries called for their negotiations that a comprehensive trilateral free trade agreement should be accelerated, and agreed to create “a predictable trade and investment environment,” a statement said.

South Korea’s AHN said the three countries should respond “jointly” to common global challenges.

“Today’s economic and trading environment is characterized by increasing fragmentation of the global economy,” he said.

“The international environment around us is constantly changing and uncertainties increase,” Japanese trader Yasuji Komiyama said in a press briefing.

Chinese official Wang Liping said “ensilateralism and protectionism spread” and the three countries must assume responsibility for protecting the multilateral trading system.

The three countries account for 20% of the world’s population, 24% of the global economy and 19% of global commercial commercial, he said.

Trump has promised duties tailored to each trading partner from April 2 to remedy the practice that he finds unreasonable.

But he also told journalists last week that there would be “flexibility” and the markets seemed to respond with some relief at the end of last week.