Occupied Korea: "but... but this will destroy our economy"
Occupier USA: "yeah good okay"
this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2025
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Why on earth would they agree to invest hundreds of millions of dollars, last week they were threatening to pull out current investments because of the whole “Kidnapping South Korean workers” thing
Worse Korea has basically nothing to lose by telling the US to kick rocks. The largest US export to SK is drunk GIs committing crimes in Seoul.
South Korea holds the cards here, the US has nothing on them. Tell the US if they don’t remove the tariffs and give other concessions you’ll pull Hyundai and Samsung from the US.
Very simple, SK is terrified of DPRK and China, and they're under US military occupation. This gives the US an incredible amount of influence over their politics. They will do what the US tells them.
they're under US military occupation. This gives the US an incredible amount of influence over their politics. They will do what the US tells them.
my from the hip answer is that it not really up to Koreans how the SK state is run. the economy is dominated by a handful of very powerful capital formations that were more or less installed as compradors to organize the productive forces of south korea to deliver what the empire requires. post war, that was the reconstruction of Japan. then it was cheap consumer products.
the capital formations have elevated a set of families to have elite extralegal power and i would assume the leaders of those families understand they would rapidly lose their incredible power and control over SK under any severing of ties to the metropole.
or maybe they think their dominance is assured and complete.
The occupied half of korea has everything to lose at all times when negotiating with the US. The US could topple their government if they wanted, they likely have contingencies for doing just that. South Korea's biggest intelligence effort against the US was Sue Mi Terry, the US ran their government openly for a generation. The power imbalance is enormous and at any time the US could squash them like bugs. Especially because the South Korean government is so incredibly reliant on American infrastructure at every step. Without American support the South Koreans don't have a functional military just like many other American "allies".
I would absolutely love for South Korea to tell America to fuck off and join their Northern brethren, but that is not the situation in which they find themselves.