Coupang is not the core issue: U.S. Democrats and Republicans share a push to protect domestic companies

“Coupang is not the core issue.” That was the thrust of expert analysis about the recent U.S. response to the Korean e-commerce company. The issue, they said, should not be read simply as a bilateral clash over one company.

Instead, the reaction reflects a protectionist line that U.S. political leaders across party lines have maintained for years: protecting American companies and their overseas interests. The assessment emerged at a forum titled “The U.S.-Korea Alliance Walking on Thin Ice,” hosted by the National Assembly’s Global Diplomacy and Security Forum.

With the U.S. midterm elections approaching in November, participants examined a range of issues, including investment in the United States, tariffs, digital trade and relations with North America. The Coupang dispute served as one part of that wider discussion about changing conditions surrounding the alliance.

Woo Jung-yeop, a senior research fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the U.S. view that digital trade rules can discriminate against American companies did not arise with the Coupang case. He said Washington had already been increasingly treating regulations imposed by the European Union, Canada and others as discriminatory toward U.S. businesses, while seeking to protect American platforms and information-technology companies.