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 Jenna Gibson Halloween as we know it in the United States is still not widely celebrated in South Korea. Trick or treating is limited to kindergarten parties and English hagwons, and you’re unlikely to see many jack-o-lanterns or skeletons decorating peoples’ homes. But in recent years some parts of the holiday have been gaining…

By Jenna Gibson Last month, the Korean Ministry of Education announced major changes to the way South Korean students will learn English. Some of them are positive, and can potentially help ease the overwhelming classroom workload for Korean students. But these new policies may also have some unintended side effects. Schools will be cutting the…

By Kyle Ferrier In a 2014 speech in Dresden attempting to apply lessons from German unification to the Korean Peninsula South Korean President Park Geun Hye introduced the possibility for a Northeast Asian Development Bank. Still in the nascent stage of planning, it would serve as a multilateral development bank (MDB) to attract investment in…

With Germany marking the 25th anniversary of unification this is the second part of a five part series looking at insights from the German unification experience for the Korean peninsula. Part I on the challenges of integration can be found here. Part III on integrating the bureaucracy and the military can be found here. Part IV on the social challenges of…

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.