Trump specifies floor of tariffs at 15%… ”can be increased to 50%” = South Korean report

"We're going to impose simple and clear tariffs between 15% and 50%," US President Donald Trump said on the 23rd local time.
President Trump said at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Summit held in Washington DC on this day,
"There are so many countries that we can't negotiate with every single one of them," he said. "We're going to impose very simple tariffs on some of the countries."
He added that "we may impose up to 50% on countries with which we do not have a very good relationship," and that starting next month on the 1st
The reciprocal tariff policy effectively set a 15% floor for tariffs to be implemented. This was an increase from the 10% base tariff originally mentioned, and was intended to allow the United States to reduce trade
This is interpreted as a sign of the intention to impose more aggressive and higher tariffs on the majority of countries that are not in the agreement. As a result, the average tariff rate in the United States is likely to rise to the high teens.
Earlier this month, President Trump said he plans to send letters to over 150 countries outlining the tariffs, which he said will likely be between 10 and 15 percent.
The previous day, President Trump announced that he would lower the 25% tariffs he had initially teased with Japan to 15%, in exchange for Japan lifting import restrictions on some U.S. products and agreeing to a 550 billion yen reduction in tariffs.
Taking this into account, the tariffs on Korea are expected to be at least 15% or more.
South Korea, which has a trade dispute with Japan, will have to accept the 15% reciprocal tariff rate as Japan and will have to lower its tariffs on major items such as automobiles and steel to 15% in order to compete with the United States on an equal footing with Japan.
However, such tariffs are disadvantageous to South Korea, which has a US-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA).