• Korean shipbuilders expand US partnerships in $150B cooperation push SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - South Korea’s three major shipbuilders are expanding partnerships with U.S. companies in naval ship design, smart shipyards, workforce training and supply chains, as Seoul moves to accelerate a $150 billion shipbuilding cooperation package with Washington.
• Korean leaders meet Nvidia at San Francisco AI summit SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - President Lee Jae Myung and a delegation of South Korea's leading executives and researchers are meeting Nvidia and its ecosystem partners at an AI summit in San Francisco this week.
• Korea faces 12.5% tariff under new U.S. Section 301 SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) -South Korean exports to the United States will effectively face a tariff floor of 12.5 percent under President Donald Trump's new Section 301 action targeting imports linked to forced labor, but Seoul avoided being placed in the blanket tariff category after Washington cited its bilateral trade agreement with Korea.
• Korea and U.S. launch shipbuilding center to drive MASGA SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) -South Korea and the United States on Thursday launched a shipbuilding cooperation center in Washington to facilitate the planned US$150 billion investment in the U.S. shipbuilding sector that Seoul committed to under last year's bilateral trade and investment agreement.
• Washington keeps Seoul on FX watchlist, backs KRW stabilization actions SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) -The United States kept South Korea on its currency monitoring list on Thursday, saying the country continued to run large external surpluses while acknowledging Seoul's intervention to curb excessive volatility in the won and its efforts to further liberalize the foreign exchange market.
• US ambassador to Korea to arrive in Seoul next week SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - The new United States ambassador to South Korea will leave for Seoul next week, ending a vacancy of about 18 months at the top of the American mission and putting a confirmed envoy on the ground just as the two governments try to turn a sweeping trade and investment deal into actual projects. Michelle Steel gave the timing Thursday (local time) in response to a question from Yonhap Ne

AJP Briefing

• KOSPI leads Asian retreat on oil jitters, capping sidecar-ridden week SEOUL, July 24 (AJP)— South Korean stocks suffered another sharp selloff Friday as surging oil prices driven by escalating Middle East tensions and mounting interest-rate concerns fueled broad risk aversion, sending both the KOSPI and KOSDAQ into sell-side sidecars for a fifth consecutive trading session. The benchmark KOSPI closed at 6,690.62, down 5.72 percent, and the junior KOSDAQ fell 5.32 percent, to 748.22, as foreign and institutional investors accelerated selling despite heavy bu
• Court rejects bid to block wider distribution of box office hit 'The King's Warden' SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - A Seoul court has rejected a bid to block further distribution of The King's Warden, clearing a legal obstacle to the historical drama's release on streaming services, home video and other platforms. The Seoul Western District Court dismissed an injunction sought by the family of a screenwriter who alleged that the film had copied the script of the 2000s television drama Eom Heung-do. The application was filed against co-producers Onda Works and BA Entertainment,
• Lee departs for San Francisco to begin multi-nation overseas trip SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - President Lee Jae Myung left for San Francisco in California on Friday to begin a multi-nation overseas trip that will also take him to three South American countries and Germany. During the trip, which will last about 11 days until early next month, he is expected to seek stronger cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI)-related industries, investment and economic partnerships. In San Francisco, the first leg of his trip, Lee will spend two days meeting the heads of
• KAIST, NVIDIA open joint lab to build AI for Korean industry SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - NVIDIA will pour $300 million into a joint research laboratory with the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology to develop artificial intelligence built specifically for the Korean language and South Korea's industries, in one of the largest corporate commitments to AI research at a Korean university. The NVIDIA-KAIST Joint AI Research Lab will be housed at the Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI on the Seoul campus of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science

ASIA Insight

• Asia's Gen Z do not wait for permission anymore SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - A canceled exam in New Delhi. A social media ban in Kathmandu. A housing allowance in Jakarta. A job quota in Dhaka. None of these, on its own, reads like the beginning of a national crisis. Yet each one sent hundreds of thousands of young people into the streets, and in two of those countries the government did not survive. Something has shifted in how Asia's youngest adults deal with power. The region's leaders are finding out the hard way. The latest lesson is by Park Sae-jin
• Borderline Koreans: too able to qualify, too slow to fit SEOUL, July 22 (AJP) - It is 2 p.m., and the lunch rush has cleared at Youth Mungan, a kimchi stew shop in Seoul's southwestern neighborhood of Nakseongdae. A young man moves from table to table, spraying sanitizer and wiping every corner with meticulous care. "Customers sit here," Kim Ji-woo, 27, said sheepishly. "Wiping it perfectly clean puts my mind at ease." He clears plates, relays orders to the kitchen and folds used aprons neatly onto a rack. Closing the dining by Kim Dong-young, Yoo Na-hyun

AJP Watch

• Navy tests humanoid robot at ship's wheel in first crew experiment SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - South Korea’s Navy has tested a humanoid robot as a ship crew member for the first time, putting the machine at the wheel inside a bridge simulator as part of efforts to reduce sailors’ workload and prepare for a shrinking pool of military personnel. The Navy said Friday that the experiment was conducted Wednesday at the Naval Education and Training Command’s ship-handling training facility in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, in cooperation with the
• Samsung's 8-year-old foldables evolve for every need SEOUL, July 23 (AJP) - Foldables in their eighth generation have come of age, arriving in different shapes and forms tailored to different user needs with the artificial intelligence at the center of the experience, according to Samsung Electronics, the pioneer of foldable smartphones. At a media briefing held in central Seoul on Thursday, a day after Galaxy Unpacked in London, executives from the company's Mobile eXperience (MX) division walked journalists through the newly unveiled Galaxy

AJP Focus

• Won breaks from yen as SK hynix dollar flows reshape FX outlook SEOUL, July 24 (AJP) - "Excess volatility is undesirable." That identical message from the U.S. Treasury Department applied to both the South Korean won and Japanese yen in its latest semiannual currency report to Congress, even as it kept both countries on its monitoring list. Treasury said recent depreciation pressures were not in line with South Korea's strong economic fundamentals and reiterated that foreign-exchange intervention should be reserved only for episodes of excess
• Trump's tariff maze keeps Korea guessing as another deadline looms SEOUL, July 23 (AJP) - For U.S. trading partners—foes and allies alike—it has become nearly impossible to keep up with tariff rates during President Donald Trump’s second term. The levy on South Korean imports has swung from 25 percent to 10 percent, back toward 25 percent, down to 15 percent and then back again to 10 percent — all in little more than a year. The next number could be 12.5 percent. A temporary 10 percent U.S. surcharge on imports from South Korea and mo