The city of Pohang on South Korea's east coast for decades pumped out the steel that fuelled the country's breakneck economic rise. Businesses, officials and workers in the city now fear a planned 25 percent tariff on all steel imports to the United States beginning next month could have devastating impacts -- and major knock-on effects on South Korea's economy. "In a country where automobiles, shipbuilding, electronics, and other fields are developed and where exports are the main focus, the economy is now suffering a significant shock. To put it in an extreme way, leading to an irreversible situation," Lee Kang-deok, Pohang's mayor, tells AFP. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES