United States of America

Trade ties between the United States and many East Asian countries have faced a high degree of uncertainty since Donald Trump took office in early 2017. The world is now…

During his visit to Asia in November 2017, President Donald Trump announced his vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” as the U.S. approach to the region. The Department of…

Beef trade was a major sticking point between the United States and South Korea in ratifying the KORUS FTA. The outcome of the renegotiations that led to the March 2018…

The sudden announcement of a North Korea-U.S. summit in March 2018 upended all previous diplomacy concerning North Korea’s nuclear program. In return for a bilateral presidential summit, Pyongyang has agreed…

While the economic components of the Camp David summit will not be remembered in the same way as the Plaza Accords or Bretton Woods, the agreement nonetheless lays out an ironclad economic framework for cooperation between the United States, Korea, and Japan which will serve to benefit the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The economic announcements provide…

When the leaders of Japan and South Korea join President Joe Biden at Camp David on August 18, it will cap a year of remarkable progress in bringing relations in the region back from the depths of dysfunction. The summit will showcase the attempts by the Biden administration to institutionalize trilateral security cooperation – tying…

2,367 days ago (6 years and 6 months ago), the last U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights left office after serving in that position for over 7 years.  (By way of full disclosure, I was that last Special Envoy.)  The North Korean Human Rights Act, which established the position of Special Envoy, was…

On May 17, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a confirmation hearing for five individuals nominated by President Joe Biden to be ambassadorial representatives of the United States.  One of the nominees whose confirmation was under consideration was Julie Turner who was nominated by the President on January 23 of this year to be the…

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.