Jang Dong-hyeok, leader of the main opposition People Power Party, strongly criticized the government's economic policy over President Lee Jae-myung's announcement of an "artificial intelligence (AI) summit declaration" during his visit to the United States, saying, "He talks only about AI while failing to properly handle tariff negotiations."
On Facebook on the 25th, Jang wrote, "President Lee is leisurely on an overseas trip. He says he will make Korea a 'global AI supply chain nation.' Why did he go all the way to San Francisco to say something so obvious? Why go to the US when he cannot properly handle even a single tariff negotiation?"
Earlier, President Lee announced an "AI summit declaration" centered on building a global AI supply chain at the AI summit held in San Francisco, US, on the 24th.
Jang also brought up the situation in the domestic stock market. "Sidecars have been triggered for 10 consecutive trading days," he said. "In the stock market gambling table created by the Lee Jae-myung administration, only the accounts of retail investors are melting away. They are barely holding on thanks to semiconductors, but the rhetoric is always grand."
He continued, "I say this a hundred times, a thousand times: the stock market lives only when the economy lives. The stock market can only normalize when the economy normalizes." He added, "Reforming the industrial structure and reforming the labor market is the path to growing our stock market on a solid footing."
He also argued, "If they pour in the National Pension and create gambling products to turn the stock market into a gambling table, in the end only the people suffer." At the end of his post, Jang added, "Well, no matter how many Buddhist scriptures you read to an ox, will it become a Buddha? An ox that cannot even understand words — better to just slaughter and eat it."
