President Lee accuses PPP, some media outlets of mischaracterizing his remarks on a sugar tax
Published: 29 Jan. 2026, 21:00
![President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a senior presidential secretaries meeting at the Blue House in central Seoul on Jan. 29. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2026/01/29/006fb041-0b52-4021-be50-2b26233ba125.jpg)
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a senior presidential secretaries meeting at the Blue House in central Seoul on Jan. 29. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday accused opposition politicians and some media outlets of distorting his remarks on a possible levy on sugar, saying he had sought public opinion, not signaled a plan to raise taxes.
He shared a screenshot of an article quoting the conservative People Power Party (PPP) on X and described the response as “shadow boxing or attacking a straw man.”
“Taxes used for general revenue and levies imposed [...] for designated purposes are fundamentally different,” Lee wrote, distinguishing between broad-based taxation and earmarked charges.
“A decision to implement a policy and simply asking for public opinion are completely different matters. Framing this as [my attempt to] ‘implement a sugar tax’ amounts to manipulating public opinion.”
The controversy followed a post Lee made on X a day earlier, when he shared a local media report stating that 80 percent of respondents supported the introduction of a sugar tax.
Lee asked whether people would support “a plan to curb sugar use through a levy on sugar, like the country did for cigarettes, and reinvest the revenue into strengthening regional and public health care.” He did not indicate that the government would move forward with such a policy.
However, several media outlets and the main opposition characterized the remarks as a push to introduce a sugar tax.
“After a sugar tax, will a salt tax be next?” said Park Sung-hoon, the PPP's chief spokesperson, accusing the government of trying to “regulate citizens’ diets through taxation.”
Kim Jae-won, a senior PPP official, said the proposal would “only increase the burden on low-income groups.”
![Sugar-sweetened beverages are displayed at a supermarket in Seoul on Jan. 29. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2026/01/29/56516acc-5418-48d1-b0d3-ac4db2235ced.jpg)
Sugar-sweetened beverages are displayed at a supermarket in Seoul on Jan. 29. [NEWS1]
In his response on Thursday, Lee accused media outlets of putting words in his mouth and using quotation marks around statements that he did not make.
“If you are the media, you should write what is true,” he said.
He noted that some headlines had later been revised to reflect that he was seeking opinions rather than announcing a policy.
With local elections approaching and tax concerns mounting, the presidential office also issued a statement.
“Some media outlets have quoted it as a 'sugar tax' and reported it as if the government were introducing a new taxation system and raising taxes, but that is not true,” the office said in a notice to reporters.
It added that Lee’s comments were intended to open a public discussion on health problems linked to excessive sugar consumption and that there was a clear distinction between policy implementation and gathering public opinion.
The presidential office said it requested corrections from outlets it said had “caused unnecessary misunderstandings and the distortion [of facts].”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY BAE JAE-SUNG [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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