I think many Koreans are overreacting in their protests against the import of American beef. There has only been a few cases of mad cow disease discovered in the US, which appears to have been contained before spreading further. The probability of contracting the disease from US beef is so low that it’s a little hard to understand the level of conflict that’s arisen from this issue.
The level of protests is bewildering, especially considering that there hardly seems to be any protests against Chinese food imports, where there is an actual and persistent history of contaminated foods being imported. At least the protests have not been particularly violent overall.