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…

By Troy Stangarone Last week we looked at the results of a recent BBC survey of international perceptions of South Korea’s influence. The same survey asked people around the world about North Korea as well and the one thing that really stands out is that no one, not one single respondent in Japan expressed a…

By Troy Stangarone Sleek. Trendy. Cutting edge. Creative. Elegant. And at times bold. All describe fashion in Korea. For Korea, fashion is very much a part of the culture. From a Korean-American colleague of mine who could go toe-to-toe with any of the world’s fashionistas to the trendy and hip fashions of the recent Yeosu…

By Chad O'Carroll With North Korea having conducted two long range rocket launches in a year, many analysts have been speculating as to why Pyongyang was so keen to try another launch just months after the last one ended in catastrophic failure. One straightforward theory suggests Pyongyang wants an inter-continental ballistic missile capability and that…

By Joyce YunSun Kang With “Gangnam style” now attracting over 650 million views, Psy (real name: Park Jae-sang) has done what no other South Korean singer has been able to do: successfully break into the mainstream U.S. market. But was this simply a YouTube video gone viral, or something else? Social media played a large…

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.