U.S. pressure on South Korea is expanding beyond tariffs into artificial intelligence and semiconductors, forcing Seoul to weigh its security alignment with Washington against deep trade links with China. South Korean officials and industry participants are reviewing how possible U.S. demands for AI decoupling from China and new U.S.-based memory fab (chip manufacturing plant) investment could reshape tariff negotiations and the domestic industrial base. The immediate issue is a reported U.S. push for partner countries, including South Korea, to choose sides in the AI rivalry with China. Reuters reported Washington is preparing a letter for countries that signed the June AI Opportunity Statement and participants in Pax Silica, a U.S.-led AI supply chain consultative body, urging them to choose carefully. Analysts differ on whether that pressure will remain focused on AI cooperation frameworks or spread into semiconductor trade, where South Korea has major exposure to China both as an export market and as a source of critical materials. At the same time, Washington is increasing pressure for memory chip production in the United States, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying in January that memory makers must either pay a 100% tariff or produce in America, and in July naming Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as companies he wants to bring to the U.S. for production investment. South Korea sees that as a difficult proposition because memory chips are a strategic industry and overseas production expansion could weaken the domestic ecosystem, raise concerns over technology and talent outflows, and increase costs. The broader constraint is that Seoul cannot dismiss the demands outright because the United States is using tariffs to support domestic manufacturing. After reciprocal tariffs were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February last year, the Trump administration imposed a 12.5% forced labor tariff under Section 301 and is expected to announce an overproduction tariff. South Korea is trying to keep the final tariff burden, including extra levies, from exceeding the 15% agreed with Washington last year while avoiding worse treatment than Japan and the European Union.