United States of America

Adhering to the action-for-action framework of the February 13, 2007 agreement, North Korea and the United States traded symbolic actions last week that grabbed the headlines—explosive video footage of North…

For Korea watchers—and particularly for those of us who worked closely on events associated with President Lee’s visit to Washington—April was a very rewarding month. After multiple protocol meetings, site…

KEI recently completed its seventeenth annual Ambassadors’ Dialogue program. The tour was the third featuring Lee Tae-sik, the Republic of Korea’s Ambassador to the United States, and Alexander Vershbow, United…

On September 20, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) released its report on the KORUS FTA. The ITC study is a required analysis under Trade Promotion Authority that explores the…

By Mark Tokola Although tensions with North Korea seem to have eased during the past few days with statements by Secretary of State Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Mattis emphasizing diplomacy over military confrontation, the test of wills between Washington and Pyongyang continues with the U.S. government stating that it will settle for nothing less…

By Hwan Kang Kakao Bank launched its internet-only banking service on Thursday, July 27, meeting unprecedented enthusiasm from Korean users. Within first 8 hours of its unveiling, customers created more than 100,000 bank accounts. After only five days, the number of accounts surpassed the one million mark and then further broke the record by reaching…

By Robert R. King Just a few days ago, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a report that North Korea is facing its worst drought in 16 years.  The report, prepared by the FAO in cooperation with the European Union’s Joint Research Center, concludes that the period April through June of this year…

By Patrick Niceforo  Since the end of the Korean War, more than 200,000 children from South Korea have been adopted around the world. A crowdsourced map shows Korean adoptees in the United States, Norway, and Australia, among other countries. With the peak of overseas Korean adoption in the 1980s, it is unsurprising that Korean adoptees have…

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.