{"id":120350,"date":"2026-08-15T09:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T09:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/120350\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T09:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T09:29:12","slug":"opposition-slams-abrupt-removal-of-koreas-top-trade-negotiator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/120350\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposition Slams Abrupt Removal of Korea&#8217;s Top Trade Negotiator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Yeo Han-koo, former Trade Negotiations Minister. Yonhap News - Seoul Economic Daily Politics News from South Korea\" title=\"Opposition Slams Abrupt Removal of Korea's Top Trade Negotiator\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"w-full h-auto rounded-sm\" style=\"color:transparent;object-fit:contain;object-position:center\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786786152_874_rcv.YNA.20260702.PYH2026070210010001300_P1.jpg\"\/>Yeo Han-koo, former Trade Negotiations Minister. Yonhap News<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) demanded an official explanation after Yeo Han-koo, the former head of the Office of Trade Negotiations at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, was abruptly dismissed from the post.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">&#8220;Where is there governance this irrational?&#8221; the party said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">In a statement on the 15th, PPP spokesperson Cho Yong-sul criticized the move, asking, &#8220;Is it acceptable to leave vacant such a critical post \u2014 one negotiating with foreign counterparts with the national interest at stake \u2014 without even giving a specific reason?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">Cho said the Lee Jae-myung administration had pledged $350 billion in investment in the United States last year without national consensus and was now under U.S. pressure to speed up its implementation. &#8220;And yet the very commander who has been responsible for those negotiations was cut without any explanation,&#8221; the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">&#8220;What is even more absurd is the reason given. The government has kept silent, citing &#8216;the judgment of the appointing authority&#8217; without disclosing a specific ground for the dismissal,&#8221; Cho added. &#8220;What secret was there that it wanted to hide? The Lee Jae-myung administration must clearly explain to the public why it replaced the trade chief without an alternative in the middle of trade negotiations with the United States.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">Lee Jun-seok, leader of the New Reform Party, also wrote on Facebook that the government had removed Yeo even as reports emerged of pressure from the Trump administration over investment in the United States. &#8220;Regardless of the reason for the dismissal, it is a step the U.S. side is bound to misread,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-[var(--color-text)] leading-relaxed\">Lee urged the government to name a successor to the trade negotiations chief at once so that there is no gap in negotiations with Washington. &#8220;If cracks appear in diplomacy with the United States, the blow to the Korean economy will be greater than the stock market turmoil we experienced a few weeks ago,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yeo Han-koo, former Trade Negotiations Minister. Yonhap News The main opposition People Power Party (PPP) demanded an official&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48183,47899,14764,18756,191,112,62186,15932],"class_list":["post-120350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seoul","tag-350-billion-investment","tag-korea-u-s-trade","tag-lee-jae-myung-administration","tag-lee-jun-seok","tag-people-power-party","tag-seoul","tag-trade-negotiations-chief","tag-yeo-han-koo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}