![\"US](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787652193_468_rcv.YNA.20260723.PRU20260723051701009_P1.jpg\")
US Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida) speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the United Nations, at Capitol Hill in Washington, July 22. (Reuters-Yonhap) <\/p>\n US Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida) speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the United Nations, at Capitol Hill in Washington, July 22. (Reuters-Yonhap) <\/p>\n
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast took aim at South Korea’s economic and security posture toward Washington, citing regulatory action against US-listed Coupang as proof Seoul is shortchanging American businesses.<\/p>\n
During an interview with Fox News on Sunday night, the Florida Republican argued that Seoul is letting regulations squeeze American corporate interests, while its promised direct investment in the US stalls.<\/p>\n
“They’re hurting American companies like Coupang,” Mast told Fox News, reiterating US concerns over Seoul’s treatment of the e-commerce giant, which South Korean regulators fined $410 million following a large-scale data breach. “They’re not delivering on their promises to provide more chips and ships and assist us with that in the United States of America.”<\/p>\n
Coupang’s regulatory troubles have repeatedly strained Korea-US relations, with US officials pointing to the case as illustrative of uneven treatment toward American firms. Seoul has pushed back on grounds that investigations follow domestic law regardless of nationality.<\/p>\n
As a close ally to US President Donald Trump, Mast tied that criticism to the administration’s recent decision to scale back joint military exercises with Seoul, on the view that drills gain little for South Korea in the interest of its relationship with North Korea.<\/p>\n
“If you’re trying to warm your relationship, and we don’t want to have this enemy that we’re on this trajectory towards war with, then what is the benefit that we are doing with these exercises?” he posed.<\/p>\n
Trump ordered the drawdown on Aug. 16, citing his rapport with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Seoul’s refusal to help pressure Iran. In a post on Truth Social, he called the exercises costly and “totally inappropriate and hostile” toward North Korea, which he said “as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.”<\/p>\n
Mast’s rebuke of Seoul runs parallel to a letter he recently signed, alongside two other House Republicans, urging South Korea to lift a travel ban on Moss Tan, a former Liberty University professor accused of spreading false claims last year about President Lee Jae Myung. The letter argued that Tan has faced unjust treatment by the South Korean government, raising serious concerns about freedom of expression and due process.<\/p>\n
By No Kyung-min (minmin@heraldcorp.com)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US Rep. Brian Mast (R-Florida) speaks during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the United Nations, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[381],"tags":[426,612],"class_list":["post-131351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-coupang","tag-coupang","tag-the-investor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131351","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=131351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}