# Trade Minister Says US Lawmakers Misread Coupang as a Pipeline for American Goods > Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan said American politicians have misunderstood Coupang, treating regulation of the US-based retailer as a trade barrier when, he argues, the real issue is a data breach that exposed most of Korea's adult population. - Source: Korea First - Canonical URL: https://koreafirst.tv/article/trade-minister-says-us-lawmakers-misread-coupang-as-a-pipeline-for-american-goods - Author: Korea First Staff - Section: Money - Published: 2026-08-06T08:25:47.084Z - Updated: 2026-08-06T08:25:47.084Z - Tags: Coupang, Kim Jung-kwan, US-Korea trade, data breach, tariffs, e-commerce --- South Korea's industry minister has pushed back against a growing line of criticism from Washington, saying American politicians have fundamentally misread what Coupang is and why Korea regulates it. Kim Jung-kwan argued that US lawmakers wrongly treat the e-commerce company as a conduit for American exports. The pushback answers a campaign that has built over months. In April, 54 Republican members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter urging Korea to end what they called discriminatory regulations against Coupang, and in July a House report accused Korea of imposing such rules on Coupang and other US firms in violation of the two countries' trade agreement. ## What the minister says they get wrong Kim's central point is that the premise is mistaken. Some members of the US political community, he said, mistakenly view Coupang as a channel for US exports. In Korea, he argued, the company is seen very differently. He described the reaction when he corrects the record. When I explain that Coupang is not viewed in Korea as a channel for importing US products, but rather as a platform that imports inexpensive goods from neighboring countries such as China, they are surprised, Kim said. The company is American in ownership but, in his telling, functions in Korea as a gateway for cheap imports from elsewhere in Asia. ## A data breach at the center For the minister, the dispute is not about trade at all. The essence of this issue, Kim said, is that Coupang leaked the personal information of nearly 80 percent of Korea's adult population. He was pointing to a data breach, disclosed in November, that affected more than 33 million customers. Framed that way, the regulation American lawmakers describe as discriminatory looks to Seoul like a routine response to one of the largest privacy failures in the country's history. The question is whether a company is being singled out for its nationality or held to account for exposing tens of millions of people's data. ## Politicians and negotiators, out of sync Kim drew a line between the American officials he actually negotiates with and the politicians making noise. Trade officials, in his account, grasp the distinction once it is explained, while some elected members do not, a gap that lets a privacy matter be recast as a trade grievance in the political arena. He has been making that case in person. The minister met Senator Todd Young on July 23, part of an effort to correct the narrative directly with the lawmakers shaping it in Washington. ## The stakes for the trade relationship The disagreement lands on a sensitive nerve in the wider relationship. The two countries operate under a trade agreement that includes a 15 percent ceiling on tariffs, and Korean goods already face duties, including a 12.5 percent tariff tied to forced-labor concerns, that keep commerce a live source of friction. Letting the Coupang question be misfiled as a trade barrier, Seoul worries, could feed pressure that spills into those broader talks. Kim's message to Washington is that the case is about privacy, not protectionism, and that getting the story straight matters before it hardens into another point of dispute. --- Originally published by Korea First. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://koreafirst.tv/article/trade-minister-says-us-lawmakers-misread-coupang-as-a-pipeline-for-american-goods.