Thoughts on Korean Business by Don Southerton

    Listen to the audio version Top story:  Korea's  chaebol  went all-in on domestic AI, mobility and defense, a 312 trillion won ($204B) wave of investment landed on top of a settled 15% tariff regime , while Hyundai posted its best-ever June in the US. The week's throughline: Korean top groups are building at home and on American soil at the same time. Chips & AI, Korea doubles down at home President Lee opened the week unveiling a $576 billion semiconductor and AI investment drive, anchored by Samsung and SK Hynix 's combined ~800 trillion won for new southwest fabs. Midweek, SK Hynix moved to list an ADR on Nasdaq (SKHY) around July 10, raising up to ~$29B to fund chip infrastructure tied to US demand, the clearest signal yet of Korea buying US capital access. An ADR represents shares of a foreign company and allows international stocks to be easily bought and traded on U.S. exchanges like the NYSE or Nasdaq. Trade & tariffs The 15% reciprocal r...

  Why Korean Agreements Keep Changing After Signing, and How to Manage It In Korea , signing a contract formalizes the partnership. The document solidifies the working relationship,  but terms are expected to change and be renegotiated over time as business conditions shift. In the West , a legal agreement is treated as immutable.  That single difference is the source of most Korea–US contract friction, and it surfaces both during negotiations and long after the ink has dried. Where the friction shows up Korean teams may request changes after changes to a Western company’s standard agreements, questioning even basic boilerplate at levels that frustrate legal counsel.  Sometimes, no changes surface early, only to be raised later once key points are thought to be settled.  Great patience may be required to walk Korean teams through Western legal terminology and to clarify what cannot be altered without breaking compliance with state, local, and international...

    Listen to the audio version February was great. April and May were awful. Same business, same offer, same market. Nothing changed except one thing: in the weeks up to February, you'd been doing daily outreach consistently. Then you went head-down delivering. Outreach stopped. The pipeline dried up. By the time you noticed, it was already too late to fix quickly. It wasn't a bad business. It was a feast-or-famine cycle , and no system to break it. I used to think this was just how business worked. Great month, dead month, great month again. Roll with it, that's the nature of the game. It's not. Here's the root cause: when you're the one doing outreach, content, follow-up, and delivery, something always gets dropped. And outreach is always the first thing to go when you get busy. Which means your pipeline only fills when you have time — exactly when you need it least. The math is brutal. If it takes 60–90 days for a lead to go from first contact to closed dea...

  A turnkey, end-to-end platform for seabed critical mineral processing in the South Pacific The Platform Already Exists Pago Pago is a working deep-water harbor, a turnkey industrial complex that will be run by government, business, and private industry side by side. Deep-draft commercial and military vessels already deliver and load containers and specialized industrial cargo, handled by established shipping and drayage companies. Around it sits a mature private-sector cluster: fuel, industrial welding and fabrication, food provisioning, electronic radar and sonar repair, medical care, and crew services. International shipping and banking are well established. A Proven Industrial Track Record Since 1954, American Samoa has been the world’s premier tuna receiving, processing, and shelf-stable canning center. Today, South Korea’s Dong Won Industries owns and operates StarKist Seafoods American Samoa , processing and packing nearly 400 tons of tuna every workday. The workforce, in...

  Thursday, July 2, 2026   Listen to the audio version HEADLINE Hyundai posts best-ever June in the US, on pace for a fourth straight annual sales record. TOP STORY Hyundai posted its best-ever June in the US, 77,555 units, up 11% year over year, capping record Q2 and first-half results. Hyundai is on pace for a fourth straight annual US sales record, powered by hybrids and crossovers . Kia also set a June record as the hybrid surge lifted both Korean brands across the board. KOREAN CORPORATE TRACKER Hyundai's momentum is hybrid-led, and Newsweek's 2026 Readers' Choice Awards named Hyundai Best SUV, Best Car, and Best Truck Brand, with Santa Fe , Elantra, and Santa Cruz taking segment honors. Consumer pull is reinforcing the sales run. BCW TAKE Hyundai's hybrid-led run shows Korean autos winning US share on product mix, not price, and that is the playbook competitors will be forced to chase into 2027. BCW Client Spotlight: CANICATICARE CANICATICARE is a Daegu, South K...

  July 1, 2026   Listen to the audio version   Headline:   SK Hynix set to list on Nasdaq , targeting roughly $29B Top Story SK Hynix's Nasdaq listing is this week's biggest Korea-US capital markets move, and funding continued chip infrastructure buildout tied to US demand. Trade & Tariff LG Energy Solution , Samsung SDI , and SK On move ahead with battery-sector refund claims after February's Supreme Court ruling against Trump-era reciprocal tariffs . Hyundai Motor Group is staying cautious on claiming U.S. tariff refunds, wary of friction with the Trump administration. The Korean government has stepped back, calling refunds a company-by-company matter. Check out  Chosun Daily . BCW Take Korea exposure now cuts both ways: opportunity and legal risk. BCW Client Spotlight: Ander.ai Ander.ai is an enterprise AI governance company building IPX , an IP Transaction Ledger that sits between an organization's AI Governance Office and its live AI systems. In plain...

  Listen to the audio version Headline Hanwha doubles down on US shipbuilding Top Story At IndoPac 2026, Hanwha's CEO said Korean shipbuilding strength is now firmly rooted in Philadelphia, where the workforce has grown from hundreds to over 2,000 since the Philly Shipyard acquisition. Hanwha just won its first US Navy contract for the Next-Generation Logistics Ship design and is building MARAD multi-mission vessels, with a $5 billion plan to lift annual output toward 20 vessels. This is the clearest signal yet that the $150 billion Korea shipbuilding commitment is converting into US jobs and naval capacity. Trade & Tariff The 10 percent Section 122 tariff on Korean goods is set to expire around July 24, 2026, the 150-day statutory limit. The Court of International Trade ruled it unlawful in May, but collection continues under a Federal Circuit stay pending appeal. Watch for whether the administration lets it lapse or pivots to Section 301/232 authority. BCW Take The shipbuildi...