United States of America

The relationship between the United States and the Republic of Korea is unique; the challenges it faces are not. Next-generation views of the ties between Seoul and Washington do not…

As the U.S. economic crisis was just getting off the ground, many analysts claimed Asia would be relatively immune to the impact because its economies had “decoupled” from the United…

Given the growing importance of East Asia to global stability and prosperity, sustaining the five U.S. treaty alliances in the region—Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Thailand, and the Philippines—will…

On 30 June 2007, U.S. and South Korean trade officials signed the U.S.- Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). The two countries reached the agreement after 10 months of very…

By Seok Lee After the Panmunjom Declaration, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un and President of the Republic of Korea Moon Jae-in held an historic North-South summit in Pyongyang from September 18 to 20, 2018. They discussed a broad range of topics such as nuclear weapons,…

By Sanghyun (Raphael) Lee Recent developments have placed a spotlight on the guidelines that the South Korean government has used to determine military duty exemptions for the last 30 years. Some critics point out that the government has already reached the goals that it had set out to attain through the exemption system: broader recognition…

By Mark Tokola President Trump and President Moon Jae-in both addressed the United Nations General Assembly this year, the former on September 25 and the latter on September 26.  They agreed that enormous progress has been made on the denuclearization of North Korea.  They thanked each other for their efforts in negotiating with Kim Jong-un. …

By Troy Stangarone Baseball is one of the most popular sports in South Korea, and in recent years there have been an increasing number of Korean players in Major League Baseball (MLB). With the regular season concluded and the Rockies eliminated from the playoffs, Ryu Hyun-jin of the Dodgers is the only Korean player still…

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.