United States of America

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…

On 1 April 2007 Korea and the United States finally completed their year-long negotiations to conclude the Korea- U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), which was then signed by the…

President Lee Myung-bak won a landslide victory in 2007. His popularity before the election was obvious, and it came as a surprise to almost no one that he won by…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz As October faded away, the hopes for an early November high-level meeting as promised after an inter-Korean meeting during the closing of the Asian Games faded as well when North Korea informed South Korea via fax that it would not meet due to the balloons being sent by South Korean activists into…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz October started off well for inter-Korean relations, but ended in disappointment. North Korea surprisingly sent three of its top leaders to Incheon, South Korea for the closing of the Asian Games and to meet with South Korean officials. Following the meetings, the two Koreas announced their desire to have another high level…

By Adam Cathcart As the rest of the world gets accustomed to seeing Kim Jong-un walk with a cane, we might do well to figure out what, if anything, is changing about the way that the broader North Korean state engages with the economic powerhouses that engulf its southern and northern peripheries. KEI's Director of…

By Nicholas Hamisevicz From the Hack North Korea contest to smuggling in USBs and launching balloons over the DMZ, there have been many ways people have tried to get outside information to the North Korean people. Recently, an effective strategy was simply to have a powerful wireless Internet signal that anyone can access. This move,…

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.