U.S. political circles have taken subject with Korea’s complete home digital regulation agenda in response to the federal government’s transfer to sanction Coupang, which precipitated an enormous private info leak. On condition that the U.S. has constantly demanded the elimination of non-tariff boundaries (NTB) within the digital sector, considerations come up that this incident might turn out to be the fuse for a commerce dispute.
Adrian Smith (Republican), chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee of the U.S. Home Methods and Means Committee, acknowledged at a subcommittee listening to on Jan. 13 (native time), “Korean regulatory authorities already appear to be aggressively focusing on America’s know-how leaders,” mentioning that “discriminatory regulatory measures in opposition to Coupang are one instance.”
The listening to was held whereas Yeo Han-koo, Korea’s chief commerce negotiator, was visiting the US to handle U.S. considerations about Korea’s digital regulation traits. At this venue, Rep. Carol Miller (Republican) acknowledged that strikes to dam free commerce within the digital sector are “most evident in Korea.”
Because the launch of Donald Trump’s second administration, U.S. political circles and the IT business have constantly taken subject with Korea’s digital laws, together with the On-line Platform Act laws push, restrictions on precision map exports, the Cloud Safety Assurance Program (CSAP), and the Synthetic Intelligence (AI) Framework Act. The current amendments to the Data and Communications Community Act (Misinformation and Disinformation Prevention Act) that handed the Nationwide Meeting and are scheduled to take impact in July, together with Coupang’s info leak incident, seem to have additional agitated U.S. political circles. U.S. lawmakers criticized the telecommunications community legislation amendments as a “censorship legislation” and the Coupang investigation as a “witch hunt.”
The federal government has constantly defined that Korea’s laws don’t discriminate in opposition to U.S. corporations. The joint reality sheet launched in November final yr, summarizing the outcomes of the bilateral summit, explicitly states, “We commit to making sure that U.S. corporations is not going to face discrimination or pointless boundaries in legal guidelines and insurance policies associated to digital companies, together with community utilization charges and on-line platform laws, and we decide to facilitating cross-border switch of data, together with location, reinsurance, and private info.”
U.S. lawmakers centered their criticism on how “the Korean authorities’s current actions contradict Korea-U.S. commerce agreements.” This seems to be a technique of strongly pressuring Korea primarily based on the very fact sheet.
Specialists referred to as for the Korean authorities’s strategic response. Kim Tae-hwang, professor of worldwide commerce at Myongji College, famous, “The federal government wants an intensive response technique to counter the U.S. authorities and firms utilizing the Coupang incident as a pretext to boost discrimination arguments whereas difficult digital laws reminiscent of Korea’s on-line platform legislation push and Google’s map export points.”
Issues had been additionally raised that the federal government ought to act cautiously to guard new development engines like AI and cloud companies, in addition to digital sovereignty. Lee Sung-yup, professor at Korea College’s Graduate College of Administration of Know-how, identified, “It’s true that the Coupang incident has expanded past private info leaks to different regulatory points, offering grounds for U.S. dissatisfaction,” including, “There’s a want for strict legislation enforcement inside mandatory scope by means of goal reality verification.”
