(Bloomberg) -- A high-level trade meeting between South Korea and the US this week has been postponed after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent became unavailable due to a scheduling conflict, South Korea’s Finance Ministry said Thursday.

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The so-called “2+2” dialogue, originally scheduled for Friday, was expected to bring together top finance and trade officials from both nations, involving Bessent, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, South Korea’s Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol and Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo.

While the full-format meeting has been pushed back, Yeo and Greer still plan to meet this week, South Korea’s trade ministry said, without specifying the exact date. Separately, the finance ministry said Washington has proposed rescheduling the meeting involving Bessent as soon as possible.

“Since they’ve mentioned rescheduling the talks soon, it seems safe to consider it a postponement for now. There doesn’t seem to be an issue with the negotiations themselves,” said Jeong Woo Park, a Nomura Holdings economist. “From the US perspective, they probably don’t view the Korea discussions as urgent since they have successfully wrapped up their talks with Japan.”

South Korea had viewed the Friday dialogue as a critical chance to make progress in trade negotiations ahead of a looming Aug. 1 deadline for President Donald Trump’s across-the-board tariffs to go up to 25%. Bessent’s absence takes some of the momentum out of the talks, but South Korea is still looking for further developments led by its chief trade negotiator Yeo.

The delay comes after the US reached a deal with Japan to impose 15% tariffs on imports, sparing Japan from the 25% across-the-board tariffs that were set to take effect next week. The agreement also cut car tariffs to 15% from the current 25%.

Seoul has been seeking to shield its export-dependent economy by weighing politically sensitive concessions, including agricultural market access, increased energy purchases and making higher contributions to the costs of US military presence in South Korea.

What Bloomberg Economics Says...

“Trump certainly wants to get a deal with Korea, but closing Japan has likely lowered his concern about talks moving past August 1. With the threat of reciprocal tariffs returning he may feel that the responsibility falls squarely on other countries to come to the table and get the deal done.”

— Adam Farrar, senior geoeconomics analyst for Asia-Pacific at Bloomberg Economics

The US and South Korea have also discussed creating a fund to invest in American projects as part of a trade deal, similar to an agreement Japan struck Tuesday with Trump, people familiar with the matter said. The scope of the discussions was not immediately clear, but the US has been seeking pledges totaling hundreds of billions of dollars.

Seoul had planned to unveil a $100 billion offer during the now-postponed July 25 talks, according to Yonhap News.

(Updates with additional information in final paragraph.)

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