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Late last month, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met President Donald Trump in the White House in what was arguably Lee’s most difficult foreign policy test to date. If the goal was to avert another Oval Office spectacle between Trump and a world leader, win over Washington’s policy elite, and avoid further demands from…

The U.S.–South Korea alliance has deterred renewed war on the Korean Peninsula for seventy-two years. And while neutralizing Pyongyang’s nuclear threat remains essential, Washington and Seoul must cast their vision to the broader challenge of shaping regional peace and prosperity. For the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty to remain both “ironclad” and the “lynchpin” of Indo-Pacific…

The North Korean economy grew 3.7 percent in 2024 (Figure 1), its fastest pace since 2016, according to estimates by South Korea’s central bank announced at the end of August. North Korea’s second straight year of positive growth propelled its GDP to its highest level since 2017, reversing the declines driven in part by international…

Months of U.S.-South Korea negotiations in areas across trade, energy, and security reached their crescendo with President Lee Jae Myung’s first meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House in August. In addition to an Oval Office meeting, Lee’s visit included a speech at a major DC think tank, participation in a roundtable with…

The August 2023 trilateral summit at Camp David marked a historic milestone in U.S.-South Korea-Japan relations, establishing new frameworks for crisis consultation, information-sharing, joint military exercises, and cooperation on critical…

On September 3, the leaders of China, North Korea, and Russia attended a military parade in Beijing, China, to mark the eightieth anniversary of China’s Victory Day. Their meeting received global attention as the top leaders of the three countries reunited for the first time in sixty-six years at the very same Tiananmen Square, where…

Hyo-young Lee is a Resident Fellow at KEI and Associate Professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA).

The September 4 detention of some 300 South Korean nationals at the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) in Georgia exposes a contradiction in the Donald Trump administration’s goal to “Make America Great Again.” The Trump administration has prioritized deporting illegal immigrants who are viewed as gaining benefits without having established citizenship, but it also…

The Donald Trump administration’s AI action plan, released on July 23, 2025, seeks to accelerate the growth and proliferation of U.S. AI technology while strengthening restrictions on high-end transfers to adversaries. It emphasizes deregulation to ensure U.S. supremacy in AI, expanded federal support for exports, and stronger controls on AI chips bound for China.   While…