President Lee Jae-myung met U.S. President Donald Trump in Türkiye on the 7th local time, but the Coupang issue, which has emerged as a Korea-U.S. pending matter, was reportedly not raised. According to the Blue House, President Lee met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during an official welcome dinner hosted by Erdogan in Türkiye, where Lee was visiting to attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit. The two leaders agreed to hold follow-up talks on building military vessels and to push for a U.S. trip and golf meeting. It was their first meeting in three weeks since the Group of Seven (G7) summit in France last month, but the Coupang affair was not mentioned.
The meeting drew attention as it came amid the controversy over the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's "Coupang report," which argued that "Korea discriminated against U.S. corporations," spreading into a Korea-U.S. trade and diplomatic issue, but the government appears to be maintaining a cautious stance. At a closed-door party-government meeting between the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources and the Democratic Party of Korea on the 8th, the Coupang issue did not make it onto the table for now.
In contrast, resistance is spreading in the National Assembly, centered on the ruling bloc. Centered on the National Policy Committee, a compendium directly rebutting the U.S. House report has appeared, and there are discussions on systematically delivering it to and protesting at the White House and the U.S. Embassy in Korea. The Trade. Industry Energy. SMEs. and Startups Committee (Sanja Committee) is signaling a "Coupang round two" at this year's parliamentary audit to scrutinize Coupang's lobbying in the U.S., with the Coupang affair emerging as a flash point in the second half of the political calendar.
◇ Key U.S. administration figures directly entangled with Coupang
According to the government and related industries on the 9th, there is analysis that the reason President Lee and the Korean government are unable to challenge Coupang's unilateral claims is that President Trump and key U.S. administration figures are directly tied to Coupang. According to financial disclosure records recently released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE), President Trump traded Coupang stock 18 times through an asset management firm from October last year to May this year.
The same goes for key trade and diplomatic figures. Jamieson Greer of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) received $10,000 (about 15 million won) in speaking and consulting fees from Coupang in 2024 when he was a lawyer, and Allison Hooker, undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department, also reported having provided consulting to Coupang and received compensation before taking office. In just the first quarter of this year, Coupang spent $1.09 million (about 1.7 billion won) on an all-out lobbying campaign targeting the White House, Congress and the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR).
◇ Politicians say they will get to the bottom of Coupang's lobbying in the U.S.
The mood in the National Assembly is quite different from the government's. Kim Hyun-jung, a Democratic Party lawmaker on the National Policy Committee, said the report "unilaterally represents Coupang's position and has no basis," and produced rebuttal reports in Korean and English. She plans to deliver them to the White House and the U.S. Embassy in Korea. She noted that "Coupang is intentionally downplaying the scale of the leak." While the Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that 37.55 million people were affected, the report highlighted only that about 3,000 accounts stored by a former employee were at issue, and the National Intelligence Service branch also called it "a one-sided claim that relies entirely on Coupang's materials and testimony."
Jang Cheol-min, a Democratic Party lawmaker and ruling-party secretary on the Sanja Committee, also wrote on Facebook that he would make sure to determine what materials Coupang handed over to the U.S. Congress, by what route, and whether national security-related documents were taken out without authorization in the process. While urging a direct rebuttal from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, he forecast a "round two" of the parliamentary audit following last year's, vowing to get to the bottom of Coupang's lobbying in the U.S.
◇ Coupang report becomes a flash point for the second half of the political year
The report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, the source of the uproar, defined the Korean government's actions as a violation of last year's Korea-U.S. trade agreement (a pledge of nondiscrimination against U.S. corporations), based on the testimony of Harold Rogers, acting head of Coupang's Korea unit, and urged action under Section 301 of the Trade Act. The report included figures stating that 33 of the 40 investigations the Korean government conducted after the incident were unrelated to the leak, with 4,229 requests for materials and 652 employee interviews. It also carried Coupang's claim that the National Intelligence Service made more than 230 calls with Coupang in December last year and instructed it to retrieve devices containing the leaked data from China.
With even the White House lending weight to the report, some in the opposition camp are criticizing the government's response as inadequate. Park Soo-young of the People Power Party argued on Facebook that "the Lee Jae-myung administration said it is 'faithfully conveying the government's position,' and then-Prime Minister Kim Min-seok and others explained it several times during U.S. visits, but it didn't persuade anyone." He added, "This is not about a single company, Coupang; it means the Lee Jae-myung administration's diplomatic capacity has fallen, and the Korea-U.S. alliance has grown that much more distant."
With the ruling party targeting Coupang and the opposition targeting the government over the Coupang report, the situation is also developing into a domestic political battle. If the "round two" forecast by the Democratic Party becomes reality, Coupang's lobbying in the U.S. and the circumstances of the transfer of materials are expected to once again become a flash point in the second half of the political year.