United States of America

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…

On 1 April 2007 Korea and the United States finally completed their year-long negotiations to conclude the Korea- U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), which was then signed by the…

President Lee Myung-bak won a landslide victory in 2007. His popularity before the election was obvious, and it came as a surprise to almost no one that he won by…

On May 8, President Donald Trump announced the first bilateral trade deal since unveiling the so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2. The agreement with the United Kingdom, labeled as an “Economic Prosperity Deal” rather than a free trade agreement (FTA), portends what future trade deals may look like, particularly for close allies and trading…

According to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the total stock of all foreign direct investment (FDI) in the United States increased by USD 227 billion to just under USD 5.4 trillion in 2023. This figure was largely driven by a USD 96 billion increase from Canada, USD 86 billion…

The Donald Trump administration is pursuing a flurry of activities designed to convey the impression that a wave of trade deals is underway. The announcement of an agreement framework with the United Kingdom was followed by talks between Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and Chinese counterparts. The United States and China agreed to a…

On April 22, Secretary of State Marco Rubio unveiled an organization chart and released an official statement that journalists described as a “sweeping plan” to restructure the Department of State. Reflecting the hyperbolic rhetoric of the second Donald Trump administration, the statement said, “In its current form, the department is bloated, bureaucratic and unable to…

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.