United States of America

As the reigning consensus has it, the U.S.-ROK alliance is one of the most successful of its kind in history. The alliance not only succeeded in defending South Korea from…

The year 2006 witnessed increasing concern among both Americans and South Koreans that their alliance of more than 50 years might be in jeopardy. Differences between the two governments over…

Economic Interdependence Between Korea and the United States

The Matter of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement Negotiations

The first blog post of this series for the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) assessed the propriety of the White House’s estimate of South Korean tariffs on U.S. goods and its imposition of reciprocal tariffs at 25 percent. There are several ways that the Donald Trump administration could have derived the number, but it…

The market roiled, web searches spiked, and the media was in a frenzy after President Donald Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs. Not surprisingly, the 10 percent baseline tariff on all goods with an additional “discounted” reciprocal tariff generated mostly negative reactions. As the president held up a large placard explaining that nearly every country…

From March 19 to 21, 2025, the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) led a Future of Korea (FOK) delegation to Albuquerque, New Mexico, with KEI’s Economic Policy Analyst Tom Ramage, the U.S. Department of State’s Military Advisor for Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian Affairs Ki Suh Jung, and the South Korean Embassy’s First Secretary Hae…

The United States is poised to escalate its trade brinkmanship once again. On April 2, the Donald Trump administration is expected to unveil a sweeping new tariff regime under the banner of “reciprocal tariffs,” aimed at countries with significant trade surpluses with the United States—including close allies like South Korea. White House officials purport they…

Please join KEI and KIEP for a discussion about the first 10 years of KORUS and the future of the U.S.-Korea economic relationship.