As the global technological and economic environment fundamentally changes, Korea's technology and economic growth and competitiveness policies require a corresponding strategic shift.

By uniting strategy, promotion, and regulation in a single law, South Korea has given itself a powerful instrument to shape AI—but its blunt regulatory mandates threaten to drag down the very strengths that make the act ambitious.

In the Trump and China era, South Korea must move beyond export-led growth. Scaling up small firms and boosting productivity in services must be national imperatives.

As Korea’s labor debate moves into digital policy, unions risk harming workers in the next generation of industries by prioritizing protections for existing jobs over preparing workers for technological transition.

Seventy percent of young Koreans hold university degrees. Only 14 percent of jobs are in large firms. The most immediate concern is not jobs disappearing due to AI, but that there are too few high-quality jobs in the first place.

While the Hyundai Motor case now sits at the center of Korea’s AI jobs debate, the evidence suggests that the nation’s more immediate constraints are weak productivity growth and uneven labor-market adjustment—not large-scale technological displacement. How Korea responds will shape its competitiveness in a high-cost, aging manufacturing economy under intensifying global competition.

The Trump administration’s tariff pressure reflects a transactional shift in U.S. trade policy, linking reciprocity to investment execution, regulatory predictability, and geopolitical alignment. Korea can adapt to this new playbook or absorb the economic consequences.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission's past enforcement against U.S. technology firms justifies concerns that the proposed Fairness Act will reflect de facto discrimination against American commerce.