South Korea's Rich Lobbying Spree Isn't Paying Off In DC

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Government entities footed nearly two-thirds of the bill for Korea's decade-long splurge, more than $236 million. From January 2021 through June 2026, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency dropped an estimated $85 million and the Korea Tourism Organization $33.1 million, while the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy anteed $15.4 million. US Justice Department records clock the Korean Embassy at another $10 million.

On the corporate side, it's a familiar cast of characters, lobbying separately through US subsidiaries that file under the Lobbying Disclosure Act rather than FARA. In 2024, Samsung spent $6.98 million, nearly double its 2021 total, while SK Group spent $5.59 million and Hyundai Motor Group $3.28 million, according to their Senate filings.

Mullins counts 29 Washington firms and more than 180 registered foreign agents working for Seoul between 2021 and 2025. The embassy's principal lobbyist is Thomas Sung-Hoon Kim, who has represented Korea since 2004 through his firm, Thomas Capitol Partners, for about $500,000 a year.

The other lobbying heavyweights on Seoul's payroll include Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, BGR Group, Akin Gump, Mercury Public Affairs, Squire Patton Boggs, Qorvis and DGA Group. Brownstein's Korea team has included former Democratic Senators Mark Pryor and Mark Begich.

Mercury, in particular, has some added stroke in Trumpworld: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles co-chaired its Florida and Washington offices before joining the administration. Unsurprisingly, shortly after Trump won the 2024 election, the Korean Embassy signed a $240,000-a-year contract with the firm.

Money well spent?

For one, a high-dollar direct line to the White House. Sometimes that's a volume game: FARA filings show that beginning January 3, 2025, before Trump's inauguration, a Mercury lobbyist spoke weekly with National Security Council chief of staff Brian McCormack on Korea's behalf.

The calls continued for nearly six months, until McCormack left the White House in July. But not always: in the second half of 2025, Mercury reported only two contacts for Korea, one with a Homeland Security official and one with a White House aide, while collecting a $120,000 retainer.

Slightly less anodyne: it buys a foothold on Capitol Hill. Kim, a US citizen, may legally donate to campaigns, and FARA requires him to disclose those donations. He gives generously to lawmakers whose work touches Korea policy: in the six months ending in November 2025, he made 48 donations to members of Congress and their PACs.

Mullins found that from October 2024 to March 2025, every congressional office that received $500 or more from Kim also had staff contacted on Korea's behalf in the same period.

Seoul's lobbyists work the big stages, too. At the 2024 presidential conventions, they secured credentials for then-Ambassador Cho Hyun-dong at both parties' gatherings. In Chicago, FARA records show, Korea's lobbyists at Brownstein used money and party connections to get him into a luxury suite and a skybox, and onto the convention floor.

Their targets included senior members of the Senate Judiciary, Senate Foreign Relations and House Armed Services committees, and they arranged meetings with the House's second-ranking Democrat and a senior appropriator to discuss the defense authorization bill. The ambassador attended the Republican convention as well, but the records do not show whom he met there.

Among the most active of these lobbyists is Ed Royce, the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who joined Brownstein in 2020 and registered as a foreign agent for Korea the next year.