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The U.S. and South Korean economies continued to surprise forecasters in the third quarter with much better-than-expected growth. South Korea’s GDP was very strong, growing at about a 5 percent seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) based on its revised estimate. Meanwhile, U.S. growth, not yet officially calculated due to the federal government shutdown delaying the…

For the twentieth year in a row, the UN General Assembly condemned North Korea’s human rights violations and did so at a moment when changing governments in the United States and South Korea raised real questions about whether the streak would hold. Instead, the vote underscored how deeply rooted global concern over Pyongyang’s abuses has…

South Korea’s fiscal position remains stronger than most advanced economies, but the foundation beneath that stability faces significant challenges. Years of disciplined budgeting kept public debt low and enabled the government to maintain steady surpluses throughout the 2010s, even as social spending expanded. Korea now faces a more challenging outlook, shaped by rapid population aging,…

The Donald Trump administration’s much-awaited National Security Strategy (NSS) landed last week with an audible thud. The somewhat truncated document is an odd combination of social media-style triumphalism and an effort to lay a strategic veneer on the administration’s often chaotic and contradictory policies. But the document clearly expresses an America-First view of the world,…

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s attendance at China’s Victory Day parade in September reflects a potentially ominous development in Northeast Asia’s regional security landscape. At Tiananmen Square, Kim stood alongside Chinese and Russian leaders—just as his grandfather did in 1959—a display widely interpreted as a gesture of opposition to the United States and the Western-led…

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung’s recent appearance on a cooking reality TV show may seem like light entertainment, but it is actually reflective of a strategic highlighting of a key facet of U.S.-South Korea relations. According to KEI’s 2025 annual survey, food is both the most popular aspect of South Korean culture among Americans…

U.S. and South Korean defense authorities met for the fifty-seventh Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) on November 4 in Seoul. Conventionally, the SCM Joint Communiqué is released at the conclusion of the meeting; however, this year it was delayed, coinciding with the release of the long-awaited Joint Fact Sheet on U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s meeting…