The Korea Times
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has released an annual report on foreign trade barriers that cited Korea's artificial intelligence (AI) procurement practice, digital regulations and forced labor-linked issues, to name a few. The office issued the 2026 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers on Tuesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is carrying out trade investigations on Korea, China, Japan and other trading partners, which might result in new tariffs or other measures. On AI, it pointed out that U.S. cloud service providers reported that last year, Seoul's science ministry issued tenders for high-performance graphics processing unit chips and additional cloud resources that were only accessible to domestic bidders, thus excluding U.S. companies from participating. It also listed a series of issues related to Korea's digital regulation efforts, including the introduction of bills requiring foreign content providers to pay network usage fees, and restrictions on the export of location-based data and the transfer of personal data outsi
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