Trump Continues Trading Coupang Stock: Questions Raised Over Potential Conflict of Interest

It has been revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump has been actively buying and selling shares of Coupang over the past eight months.

From October of last year to May of this year, Trump traded Coupang stock 18 times through an asset management firm.

The transactions involved common shares of Coupang, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, conducted through two of his investment accounts. The face value of the remaining shares is estimated to be up to 130,000 dollars, or approximately 200 million won.

While President Trump maintains that he has had no involvement in the management of his investments, including the Coupang stock trades, his financial connection to a company that has become a significant issue in South Korea-U.S. diplomatic and trade relations could constitute a conflict of interest.

The scale of each transaction made by Trump reportedly ranged from a minimum of 1,000 dollars to a maximum of 150,000 dollars.

It remains unclear how much profit President Trump has generated from these Coupang stock trades.

However, it has been confirmed that he purchased and subsequently sold shares between mid-October and mid-November of last year, ahead of the company's announcements regarding the "Coupang incident." He then repurchased shares in mid-December of last year, around the time when the "Coupang hearings" in South Korea began to draw attention in the United States.

Furthermore, considering the sequence of events—starting from claims in U.S. political circles in January that the South Korean government was discriminating against Coupang, followed by closed-door testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in February, and the committee's report released on the 1st of this month—some are raising concerns about a potential conflict of interest regarding the U.S. government's defense of Coupang and Trump's holdings in the company.

In addition, Allison Hooker, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, who plays a key role in the Trump administration's diplomacy toward South Korea, reported that she received compensation for providing consulting services to Coupang prior to taking office.

While the specific amount was not disclosed, financial disclosure regulations require reporting for any income exceeding 5,000 dollars per year.

Reported by Jo Gi-ho | Video by Na Hong-hee | Graphics by Lee Jung-ju | Produced by SBS Digital News
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.