![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788213011_982_news-p.v1.20260826.e450df0cf6474862afdc7ebc865ef59a_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Coupang")
A Coupang delivery vehicle. Yonhap<\/p>\nA Coupang delivery vehicle. Yonhap<\/p>\n
Political pressure from Washington over South Korea’s penalties against Coupang for a data breach is intensifying, according to a foreign media report. Republican lawmakers have alleged that Seoul used the breach as a pretext to impose unprecedented regulatory and investigative pressure on Coupang, a U.S. company, while the Korean government has pushed back, saying its assessment of the scale of the leak differs.<\/p>\n
CNBC reported on the 31st, citing multiple congressional officials and people close to Coupang, that the matter is spreading across the broader relationship between the two allies. The network said it contacted more than a dozen people familiar with the situation and that Coupang and congressional officials want the pressure from the Korean government to end quickly.<\/p>\n
A congressional official said that if the conflict drags on, Congress or the White House could retaliate against South Korea, including through additional tariffs, according to the report. Chris Stewart, head of Skyline Capital, a lobbying firm that has advised Coupang, told CNBC that “this is not just a commercial dispute,” adding that if South Korea does not back down, “at the end of the day, the president has a very powerful tool in tariffs.”<\/p>\n
Representative Michael Baumgartner, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said President Donald Trump “has spoken very strongly about fairness to American companies and about not taking unfair losses,” adding that “for that reason, I think the president’s response could be considerable.” Coupang is headquartered in Seattle and conducts most of its business in South Korea.<\/p>\n
Demands directed at the administration have also continued. CNBC reported that Senator Bernie Moreno sent a letter last week to U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer urging a formal investigation into South Korea and the imposition of additional tariffs. He argued that South Korea used a small incident as a pretext for broad weaponization against American companies, according to the report. In January, Coupang investors Greenoaks Capital Partners and Altimeter Capital petitioned Greer for an investigation into whether the Korean government engaged in discrimination and for additional tariffs. According to FactSet, Greenoaks is the second-largest shareholder with a 3.38% stake.<\/p>\n
U.S. Report Says Intelligence Service Ordered Laptop Recovery; Seoul Calls It Groundless<\/p>\n
![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/news-p.v1.20260819.882ea96eb0164fce9b7b9506d3870a8b_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Coupang")
U.S. President Donald Trump. AP-Yonhap<\/p>\n
CNBC reported that, based on a report released in July by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, the company argued the damage from the leak was minimal. The Korean government responded that its assessment of the scope of the leak differs and that domestic consumers could have been harmed by the exposure of personal information, according to the report.<\/p>\n
The report stated that after the data breach was disclosed in November of last year, congressional investigators found excessive fines, pressure and threats of criminal punishment. According to the report, the Korean government had Coupang hire divers to recover from a river in Shanghai a laptop belonging to a former Chinese employee involved in the leak. The committee cited a Coupang memo saying an official of the National Intelligence Service directed the hiring of divers and the recovery, internal documents indicating a request from a senior security official at the Presidential Office, and records of more than 200 phone calls between Korean officials and Coupang before and after the recovery.<\/p>\n
The Korean government denied this. The embassy said the claim is “completely groundless,” adding that the National Intelligence Service “only held working-level consultations on information sharing and preventing further damage in connection with the large-scale personal data leak, and never forced or directed any action.”<\/p>\n
A rebuttal document the Korean government submitted to the committee put the number of leak victims at 37.55 million. The report, by contrast, claimed that the information the former employee actually retained amounted to about 3,000 accounts. The Korean government explained that the 625 billion won ($430 million) fine imposed in June falls far short of the 3% of revenue allowed under the law. The New York Times, by contrast, reported that the fine is the largest personal data penalty South Korea has imposed on a company. Baumgartner described the Korean government’s response as “outrageous and dismissive,” saying that “whatever happened in the data breach, there was nothing that would justify this kind of excessive and punitive response.”<\/p>\n
CNBC noted that a corporate issue is turning into friction across the broader U.S.-Korea alliance. Trump said on the 16th that he would scale back annual military exercises with South Korea. A White House official told CNBC there is no direct connection between the reduction in joint military drills and Coupang. The official, referring to Trump’s executive order last year targeting foreign governments that excessively regulate U.S. technology companies, said it is “not a new focus or issue” but added that “the Korean government is out of step with us on a number of bilateral issues.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in June that some of South Korea’s handling of American companies “affected the ability to finalize a trade agreement.”<\/p>\n
Reaction in Congress was divided. Democrats pointed to ties between the company and Trump as the reason Republicans are focusing on the matter despite Coupang’s limited operations in the United States. Coupang donated $1 million to Trump’s 2024 inaugural fund, and Kevin Warsh, the current Federal Reserve chair, served on Coupang’s board from 2019 until earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Coupang delivery vehicle. Yonhap Political pressure from Washington over South Korea’s penalties against Coupang for a data…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70422,426,28798,70423,3239,70421,112,70420],"class_list":["post-138445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-seoul","tag-additional-tariffs","tag-coupang","tag-data-breach-fine","tag-michael-baumgartner","tag-national-intelligence-service","tag-section-301-investigation","tag-seoul","tag-u-s-korea-alliance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138445","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=138445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}