[Editorial] Korea should follow ideas in face of US strain over Coupang

Prime Minister Kim Min-seok of South Korea shakes fingers with US Vice President JD Vance throughout their assembly in Washington on Jan. 23, 2026. (courtesy of the prime minister’s workplace)

Throughout his assembly with Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok on Friday, US Vice President JD Vance reportedly warned Korea to droop or reduce “discriminatory” laws and investigations towards US-based tech companies equivalent to Coupang.

At face worth, this seems to be a warning towards mistreating American firms. However in mild of varied elements, now we have to conclude that Vance was maneuvered by varied highly effective lobbies, together with Coupang itself, to overtly strain the Korean authorities to show down the warmth on its investigation into a large leak of buyer information at Coupang — an e-commerce platform that does most of its enterprise in Korea. 

No less than for the following three years, Korea must grapple with the immense uncertainty introduced by Trump’s signature model of unilateralism. It’s crucial that Korea set some honest however clear boundaries and reply firmly to unfair threats.

“Vice President JD Vance met with South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok in Washington final week and warned him towards penalizing US tech companies together with Coupang,” The Wall Road Journal reported on Friday.

“Vance informed Kim that the US aspect wished to see significant de-escalation within the South Korean authorities’s therapy of tech companies equivalent to Coupang,” the US newspaper stated, citing “folks conversant in the assembly.”

“Whereas Vance didn’t difficulty an express menace to Kim, the implication was that continued motion towards US tech companies might imply extra issues for the US-South Korea commerce deal, probably resulting in its unraveling and better tariffs on South Korean items,” the newspaper reported, citing the identical sources.

The prime minister’s workplace stated earlier that Kim had “shared the exact details in regards to the Coupang difficulty, defined that this was not discriminatory therapy towards American firms, and cleared up the American aspect’s misunderstanding.” However it looks as if the precise temper on the assembly was fairly totally different.

“I perceive that the People are taking the Coupang difficulty fairly significantly. The vp’s workplace even has a staffer assigned to the problem,” a supply with information of the matter informed the Hankyoreh on Wednesday.

Coupang is presently dealing with sprawling investigations for not solely an information breach affecting greater than 30 million customers, but additionally the circumstances of the demise of a warehouse employee named Jang Deok-jun, alleged unlawful labor practices and blacklisting of workers, and unfair inner transactions. 

Amidst this scrutiny, two of Coupang’s main US traders despatched a letter to the US Commerce Consultant characterizing the Korean authorities’s investigation as a witch hunt and calling for commerce authorities to take retributive measures, whereas additionally sending a discover of intent to file arbitration claims and pursue investor-state dispute settlement to Korea’s Ministry of Justice. The traders invoke varied stipulations within the free-trade settlement between the US and South Korea whereas claiming that the corporate is being discriminated towards. With Washington now echoing these claims verbatim, it’s affordable to imagine that these letters had been supposed to threaten Korea. 

Kim Bom-suk, also referred to as Bom Kim, the founding father of Coupang who serves on the chairman of its US-based Coupang Inc., is reported to have shut ties with some key members of the Trump administration. It’s potential that the US will proceed to show up the strain on Korea because of Coupang’s highly effective foyer. Whereas candidly speaking with the US, Korea should maintain quick to its ideas. 

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