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 Jenna Gibson According to at least one poll, South Korea has a higher opinion of the United States than the United States has of itself. In its 2015 Global Indicators survey, Pew Research Center found that 84 percent of South Koreans view the U.S. favorably, while only 83 percent of Americans said the same.[1]…

With the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II over the weekend, KEI takes a look back at what has changed on the Korean Peninsula from the 1945 to today. The three boxes compare a unified peninsula before the Korean War to North and South Korea in the 2010s. By looking at GDP,…

By Phil Eskeland Commentators on both sides of the political spectrum have used North Korea and Iran interchangeably to buttress their position on the negotiations to corral Iran’s nuclear weapons ambition.  Some argue that the Iran deal will not work just like the 1994 nuclear deal with North Korea.  Others argue that the Iranian deal…

By Mark Tokola People who have worked on policy towards North Korea for some time often remark that nothing really changes: the DPRK’s weapons programs progress, gross human rights violations continue, bad crop years are met with international appeals for food assistance, acts of aggression against South Korea occur periodically, and North Korean propaganda threatens…

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.