By Rae Wee and Vidya Ranganathan

SINGAPORE (Reuters) -As the currencies of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan rise, so too is chatter that these economies could use exchange rate revaluation as a carrot in trade talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.

While a stronger currency has historically meant a competitive disadvantage for these Asian exporters, revaluation may now be the least costly bargaining chip in their scramble for favourable trading terms with the U.S.

The Korean won surged this week after officials there said currency policy was discussed at a meeting they had in Milan with U.S. officials on May 5. That comes just days after U.S.-Taiwan talks triggered an unprecedented 8% surge in the Taiwan dollar.

Japan's finance minister is meanwhile seeking to meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the G7 meetings in Canada next week to discuss foreign exchange.

Market participants have been quick to connect these developments with China's surprise 90-day trade truce with United States on the weekend at Geneva.

"This China deal is very bad news for Korea, for Japan, for anybody waiting in the queue, because now they need to offer what China managed to avoid," said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis.

She believes Taiwan may have agreed to revalue its currency as part of trade negotiations, while China pushed back against such a request.

The clock is ticking for export-reliant Asia. Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs, ranging from 25% for South Korea to 46% for Vietnam, were suspended for 90 days but could kick in on July 8, unless deals are struck.

There is greater urgency for China's immediate neighbours Japan, Korea and Taiwan, which risk being displaced from semiconductor and autos supply chains as China and India expedite negotiations with Trump.

China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Vietnam are also among the economies on the U.S. Treasury's "monitoring list" for currency practices - something Trump's team could use as a talking point in negotiations.

"The Koreans might think, 'well actually a stronger currency is in our interest and so we may as well propose this in these negotiations'," said HSBC's chief Asia economist Fred Neumann.

"These currency angles are only coming up in certain negotiations and not in others, maybe because the U.S. is not insisting on it, but it's really the other country that has brought them in as a way to kind of appease U.S. demands."

TAIL WAGGING THE DOG

Trump and Bessent have both expressed a preference for a strong dollar, though that has done little to squelch suspicion that the U.S. President wants an adjustment lower in the world's top reserve currency, a deal dubbed the Mar-a-Lago accord.