[Reporter’s Notebook] Words Alone No Longer Pay Off a Thousand Debts

The old saying that "words can pay off a thousand debts" is losing its force. Politics in this country has long tried to solve problems with words alone. Yet at a time when the global economic order and the domestic economic structure are being reshaped, words no longer carry credit. We now live in an era where only actions and outcomes are judged.
The controversy over the Special Act on Investment in the United States illustrates this clearly. Under trade pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, Korea persuaded him last year with the promise that it would "step up investment in the United States." Korea agreed to prepare the Special Act on Investment in the United States. However, even two months after concluding tariff negotiations, the ruling party merely introduced a bill and showed no real effort to move it forward.
Trump then abruptly changed course. He moved to raise item-specific tariffs, which had been cut to 15 percent, back up to 25 percent. This was the price of wasting time as the ruling party became mired in controversies such as nomination kickbacks and fought with the opposition over whether the National Assembly should ratify the deal. Trump answered the gap between our words and our actions with action of his own. In the end, the National Assembly hastily set up a Special Committee on the 9th to handle the Special Act on Investment in the United States.
There was a promise, but no execution, and the cost came back as diplomatic and trade risk. Regardless of whether one agrees with Trump’s direction in reshaping the international order, it is time to soberly reflect on how politics has failed to deliver even on conditions mutually agreed upon in international relations.
The attempt to regulate the Korean won stablecoin is much the same. The outdated regulatory mindset and lack of innovation at the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and the Bank of Korea (BOK) are eating away at the domestic digital asset industry. Under the banner of "prudence," they restrict the equity stakes of major shareholders in digital asset exchanges, undermining business autonomy. At the same time, by allowing only traditional banks to issue such products, they are blocking new business entries by innovative firms such as those in Financial Technology (FinTech).
In response, the ruling party’s Digital Asset Task Force rejected the plan put forward by the FSC and drafted its own proposal. Yet the party’s Policy Committee ultimately vetoed it, prompting some in the industry to speak of "betrayal." Our politics talks endlessly about innovation, but when it comes to taking responsible decisions, it keeps kicking the can down the road.
The international community and the markets are already making a cold assessment of Korea’s gap between words and deeds. A politics that cannot pass promised laws on time, and that shies away from decisions even when opportunities are at hand, cannot secure the future. The era when words alone could pay off a thousand debts is over. Politics now faces a single question: when will it finally answer not with words, but with action?
gowell@fnnews.com Reporter