A new report says South Korea has spent $363 million lobbying U.S. officials over the past decade, with South Korean state entities alone responsible for more than $236 million of that total through retainer fees, influence campaigns and direct outreach to American lawmakers.
The findings come from an analysis of OpenSecrets data by Brody Mullins, a Washington lobbying expert and former Wall Street Journal investigative reporter who won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
South Korea has regularly ranked among the ten biggest foreign spenders on U.S. lobbying, in the same company as Saudi Arabia and China, whose economy is roughly ten times the size of Korea’s. In 2024, Seoul outspent major American corporations such as Amazon, Google and Meta on lobbying.
The spending comes as South Korea navigates pressure from Washington on both security and trade, including U.S. requests that Seoul send naval forces to help secure the Strait of Hormuz and separate demands that it commit tens of billions of dollars to American projects.
A Utah Senator’s Role
The scale of Korea’s Washington spending has drawn attention in part because of how Seoul has treated American tech firms at home. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) has previously described South Korea’s treatment of American company Coupang as “unprecedented persecution.”
Coupang is now South Korea’s second-largest private employer behind Samsung. The company suffered a data breach affecting roughly 33 million South Korean customers, triggering an investigation and lawsuits from both investors and consumers.
Neil Mehta, founder and managing partner of Greenoaks, which holds more than $1.1 billion in Coupang stock, argued the situation has cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars. “Trade agreements are only as strong as our willingness to stand up for them, and we are acting today to ensure that international competition is governed by rules, not the whims of politicians,” Mehta said. Altimeter, another investor, holds around $210 million in Coupang shares.
Disclosed Spending Doesn’t Match Public Statements
The report also flags a gap between what Korean officials have told their own public about lobbying costs and what U.S. disclosure filings actually show. Korean officials reportedly told the public that the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy spent $3.4 million on lobbying-related activity from 2022 to 2025. Records filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act put the real figure closer to $5.4 million.
“These totals far exceed the spending that Korean officials and Korean media have previously reported,” Mullins said, noting that under U.S. law, advocacy by Korean state entities like the trade ministry counts as lobbying.
Disclosure records show Seoul retained 29 entities and more than 180 registered foreign agents in Washington between 2021 and 2025, hiring well-known firms including Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, BGR Group, Akin Gump, Mercury Public Affairs and Squire Patton Boggs. Those firms gave Korea access to a rotating cast of former lawmakers, congressional staff and White House officials from both parties.
Access to the National Security Council
Records show a Mercury lobbyist held a standing weekly phone call for months with Brian McCormack, chief of staff at the White House National Security Council, on South Korea’s behalf.
Former Rep. Chris Stewart, who served on the House Intelligence Committee, said the access raises questions worth Congress’s attention. “South Korea’s extensive efforts to cultivate influence in Washington deserve greater scrutiny, particularly as Seoul deepens its relationship with Beijing. China has made no secret of its efforts to exploit American alliances and advance its interests at our expense,” Stewart said. “Against that backdrop, the extraordinary access South Korea has secured to senior U.S. national security officials raises legitimate questions about whose strategic interests are being advanced. Congress should take a closer look at whether Seoul’s growing ties with China are beginning to undermine the interests of our alliance.”
Spending That Doesn’t Always Deliver
Despite the enormous outlay, the report finds Korea’s results have been inconsistent. Mercury logged just two documented contacts on Korea’s behalf in the second half of 2025 — one with a Department of Homeland Security official, one with a White House aide — while Korea paid the firm a $120,000 retainer for that period, roughly $60,000 per contact by Mullins’s accounting. A filing for the first half of 2026 shows zero documented contacts, yet Korea paid Mercury another $120,000 anyway.
Korean officials have separately complained they struggle to get meetings with key U.S. lawmakers, a frustration that surfaced earlier this year when the House Judiciary Committee investigated Korea’s treatment of American companies. South Korean Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Ki-heon called the lack of access “shameful,” and Korea’s Foreign Ministry suggested the resulting committee report was “one-sided” because of insufficient access.
But disclosure filings tell a different story: lobbyists working for South Korea contacted a key committee staff member roughly a dozen times through June, with Squire Patton Boggs sending a steady stream of emails, calls and texts. Korean officials also secured a closed-door meeting with committee lawmakers to discuss the investigation, according to sources close to the committee.
“For the amount of money South Korea is spending on lobbying and connections they’ve recruited, it’s surprising how little success Korean officials have had in promoting some of their recent positions on trade and national security,” a former congressional staffer close to the issue said. “President Lee should probably be asking himself, is this due to a lack of access, or is it due to a lack of trust from American leaders?”
