SEOUL, January 27 (AJP) -South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party on Tuesday vowed to speed up the legislation to support the country’s $350 billion investment commitment to the United States after President Donald Trump blamed the Korean legislative for his plan to reinstate the tariffs on selective Korean exports to 25 percent.
The party stressed that Trump was referring to legislation that has yet to be enacted in South Korea, not to parliamentary ratification of a bilateral deal.
The DP submitted a bill on bilateral trade and investment deal with the U.S. in November, and Washington in December lowered tariffs on Korean automobiles to 15 percent, retroactive to Nov. 1 , through a Federal Register notice.
Kim Hyun-jung, the party’s floor spokesperson, told reporters after a closed-door party meeting that some media reports had incorrectly interpreted Trump’s comments as meaning the Assembly had failed to ratify an agreement.
Kim said action on a special bill tied to U.S. investment has been delayed despite five related bills already being referred to the National Assembly’s Finance and Economy Planning Committee. She said the opposition People Power Party had opposed moving the bills forward while insisting that parliamentary ratification was required.
She added that one of the five bills was submitted by People Power Party lawmaker Park Sung-hoon, arguing that conditions are now in place for discussions to proceed. The bills are currently being handled under the Assembly’s legislative schedule, she said.
Kim said the Democratic Party aims to pass the measure through bipartisan agreement, citing the need to secure roughly $20 billion a year in U.S. investment, alongside exchange-rate measures and what she described as “reasonable commercial viability.”
She said calls for parliamentary ratification have made cross-party consensus necessary but reiterated that the party does not plan to pursue ratification.
“The measure is not subject to ratification,” Kim said, warning that doing so could bind South Korea more tightly. She noted that the United States raised tariffs through an executive order and argued that if only South Korea were to ratify, the legal burden would fall disproportionately on Seoul.
Kim said the party will later coordinate with the government to finalize the bill “precisely and quickly.”
Separately, the Democratic Party said it will launch a “Fix Coupang” task force on Feb. 2 to push for measures to prevent a recurrence of a large-scale personal data leak involving the e-commerce giant and to explore alternatives.
“Coupang is a Korean corporation and is subject to Korean law,” Kim said, rejecting claims that the initiative targets a U.S. company. She cited concerns over the leak of personal data affecting an estimated 30 million users and said the party’s response would be guided by national interest considerations.
Some U.S. lawmakers and investors have accused the Korean government of being "discriminatory" in its sweeping probes on Coupang, and the State Department expressed "significant concerns" over Seoul's regulatory moves that could affect online platform businesses.
Coupang claims itself as a "U.S. tech company" although its revenue entirely comes from e-commerce, food delivery, and streaming services in South Korea.
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