A Republican-led House Judiciary Committee report accuses South Korea of running a coordinated, whole-of-government campaign against American companies — particularly the U.S.-listed e-commerce giant Coupang — in direct violation of last year's bilateral trade agreement. The stakes for ordinary Americans are clear: while Washington funnels billions in military commitments and aid to Seoul, the South Korean government is allegedly using coercive investigations, punitive fines, and discriminatory regulation to kneecap U.S. businesses operating on its soil.
The 35-page interim staff report, released Wednesday and titled "Closed for Competition: South Korea's Discriminatory Attacks on American-owned Businesses," traces the escalation to a 2025 data breach at Coupang that exposed personal information tied to roughly 33 million accounts. A disgruntled former employee accessed the company's systems without authorization, and Coupang later said the individual only retained data on about 3,000 accounts. But what followed was not routine regulatory oversight — it was, according to the committee, a government siege.
More than 10 South Korean agencies launched dozens of unrelated investigations into Coupang, issuing over 4,000 document requests and conducting at least 652 interviews with employees, Reuters reported. The committee, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, described this as a "whole-of-government assault on Coupang."
The report also alleges South Korea's National Intelligence Service forced Coupang into a dangerous recovery operation that sent an employee to China to retrieve devices from the former worker responsible for the breach — including hiring divers to pull a discarded laptop from a river. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung was personally briefed on the operation, the report states. The NIS denied directing the recovery, and Democratic Party lawmaker Park Sun-won claimed there was "absolutely" no coercion.
Last month, South Korean authorities slapped Coupang with a fine exceeding $410 million — the largest penalty ever imposed on a single company, and far exceeding fines levied against domestic Korean firms for more serious data breaches, UPI reported. The report argues this is part of a decades-long pattern: Seoul has used competition policy and digital regulations to disadvantage American companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Qualcomm, while pushing digital platform legislation modeled on the European Union's Digital Markets Act.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman Park Il rejected the findings Thursday, saying the report "unilaterally accepts Coupang's claims" despite months of communication with the committee. "Investigations and measures concerning Coupang have been conducted lawfully and without discrimination," Park said. He emphasized Seoul's commitment under last year's U.S.-South Korea joint fact sheet to treat American digital companies in a non-discriminatory manner and said the government would work to ensure the dispute does not affect bilateral security consultations.
Coupang, for its part, struck a conciliatory tone, saying it is "committed to finding a constructive resolution so Coupang can once again serve as a bridge to strengthen the U.S.-Korea alliance."
The broader question the report raises — and that Seoul's dismissive response underscores — is why the United States continues to underwrite South Korea's security and economy while its government systematically targets American companies. The committee says the discrimination "directly violates" the bilateral trade agreement. If that's the case, the blank-check era for Seoul deserves a second look.
