KOREA PRO

President Lee Jae Myung’s effort to cast South Korea as Donald Trump’s “pacemaker” is an attempt to preserve Seoul’s influence over North Korea diplomacy at a time when Pyongyang refuses direct engagement and Washington can move faster than alliance coordination. Lee first used the metaphor during his Aug.

On this week’s episode of the Korea Pro Podcast, John and Joon Ha discuss the Sept. 21 DMZ mine blast that injured three South Korean soldiers, including two seriously, and the discovery of a North Korean anti-personnel mine south of the Military Demarcation Line. They then turn to the Lee administration’s appointment of Song Young-gil as a special adviser on Korean Peninsula peace and former four-star general Kim Byung-joo as a special adviser on defense.

Shinhan Bank said Thursday that personal and credit information belonging to about 25,000 customers was exposed after an outside party bypassed authentication to access some of its loan-related services. The leaked information included names, phone numbers, annual income and calculated loan limits, as well as 66 resident registration numbers and 97 connecting information identifiers.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oval Office announcement early Thursday morning (Korea time) made South Korea’s $200 billion strategic investment package sound largely settled, but the joint documents released hours later show Seoul preserved the right to review most of the projects before committing the money. That discrepancy leaves the harder question of whether those safeguards will remain usable once Washington has already claimed the political credit.

It is unclear if the dispute over two North Korean prisoners of war (POWs) is sufficient to overturn South Korea’s Ukraine policy, but it has exposed conflicting interests between the two governments and raised questions about how they will handle sensitive cooperation in the future. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed during his U.N. General Assembly address that Kyiv had transferred the two soldiers to South Korea.

South Korea expects national tax revenue to reach $353 billion (478.6 trillion won) in 2026, up $77.2 billion (104.7 trillion won) from 2025 and $46.6 billion (63.2 trillion won), or 15.2%, above the supplementary budget estimate, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF). The ministry attributed the increase to stronger-than-expected semiconductor profits, special dividends from chipmakers, buoyant equity markets and recovering private consumption.

John Lee John Lee is the Managing Editor of Korea Pro, based in Seoul, where he leads daily executive briefings, in-depth analyses and high-level events for business leaders, diplomats and policy professionals. Since joining Korea Pro in 2022, he has expanded the platform’s coverage of South Korea’s economy, trade and foreign policy and moderates its flagship Korea Business Forum and Seoul Circuit series.

President Lee Jae Myung ordered the government Tuesday to develop housing, education, health care and cultural amenities alongside South Korea’s flagship semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) projects, shifting attention toward whether skilled workers and their families can be persuaded to settle permanently in regional industrial hubs.

President Lee Jae Myung has promised South Korean farmers and fishers compensation and described their industries vital to national security, a day after his government estimated what joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would cost them. However, this framing could make it harder for Seoul to offer the concessions that existing member states are likely to demand.

The South Korean government on Monday released a preliminary assessment estimating that joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) would leave real GDP 0.38 percentage points higher 10 years after the agreement takes effect than if Seoul remained outside.