I don't accept that America's economy has been stronger in the years since the global financial crisis than Korea's. In fact, Korea along with Germany is one of the countries that have recovered their employment ratio relative to population, their GDP, and certainly their exports, so I don't think a differential macroeconomic phenomenon explains the widening difference. If the trade deficit has gotten that much worse in automotive products despite the fact that U.S. tariffs haven't even started to decline yet and the Korean tariffs have indeed started to decline, that's part of the small uptick in U.S. exports to Korea in the auto sector. That suggests to me that it's going to get even worse once the U.S. tariffs do start to come down.
Trade economists have recognized for years that you can't estimate the effects of a free trade agreement solely by running an elasticity against a proportionate tariff reduction. There is a structural change or a gravity effect of a free trade agreement that causes the expansion of trade flows above and beyond what you would normally expect just from the relative reduction in prices from tariff elimination. I don't find Mr. Burney's argument at all to ease my concern. In fact, if anything, I would be more concerned in light of those facts.