The dome of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2025 / Reuters-Yonhap
More than 50 U.S. Republicans have urged South Korea to halt what they describe as a “targeted assault” on American companies, including Coupang Inc., through discriminatory regulations, calling it an “unacceptable” move that could risk helping Chinese firms gain market dominance.
The lawmakers made the call in a letter to South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Kang Kyung-wha on Monday (U.S. time), calling on Seoul to honor its commitment to avoid unnecessary legal and policy barriers in line with the summit agreements reached between the two countries’ leaders last year.
“We are deeply concerned by the ROK government’s targeted and discriminatory actions against U.S. companies,” the letter from 54 members of the Republican Study Committee showed. ROK is short for South Korea’s official name, the Republic of Korea.
“Many American tech companies have faced a range of regulatory actions that seek to punish them while shielding Korean domestic competition,” it read.
Citing Coupang Inc., the U.S.-listed e-commerce giant that has faced intense scrutiny in Korea over its massive data leak of more than 30 million customers’ personal information, the lawmakers accused Seoul of using the “low-sensitivity” incident as a pretext to attack Coupang.
The Republicans also argued that such mistreatment of American companies with discriminatory actions would only cede ground to Chinese companies with close ties to the Chinese government, resulting in “unacceptable security consequences.”
Despite the U.S.-South Korea joint fact sheet in which Seoul agreed not to disadvantage American companies, South Korea has ignored this commitment, the lawmakers said.
“This is unacceptable,” they said in the letter. “We ask your government to end its targeted assault of American companies immediately.”
