Economics

Though hesitant to officially join the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, South Korea is seeking to promote many of the same values through the Moon administration’s “New Southern Policy.” Central to this…

This month, the world was reminded once again that the relationship between the Republic of Korea and Japan is deeply fractious. Japan has imposed restrictions on the export of chemical…

The North Korean economy is changing – we know this because of widely reported growth of private markets since the famine of 1990s. But black markets and illicit activities are…

Recently released data from the Department of Commerce confirmed that the United States achieved record-level export of services to South Korea in 2018 – $24.5 billion. Combined with the trade…

Korea has faced persistent labor shortages since the late 1980s, centered on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which tend to pay low wages for low-skilled, non-regular jobs. SMEs have faced increasing difficulty in replacing retiring workers with young people, given the large education gap between generations. In 2021, 69% of the population aged 25 to…

U.S. trade policy with South Korea has already made its way into the 2024 Republican primary talking points. In former president Donald Trump’s interview with Tucker Carlson on the X platform, which took place in lieu of a Trump appearance at the Milwaukee Republican primary debate, the issue of Trump’s tariffs on South Korean washing…

While the economic components of the Camp David summit will not be remembered in the same way as the Plaza Accords or Bretton Woods, the agreement nonetheless lays out an ironclad economic framework for cooperation between the United States, Korea, and Japan which will serve to benefit the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The economic announcements provide…

When the leaders of Japan and South Korea join President Joe Biden at Camp David on August 18, it will cap a year of remarkable progress in bringing relations in the region back from the depths of dysfunction. The summit will showcase the attempts by the Biden administration to institutionalize trilateral security cooperation – tying…

As disruptions in supply chains continue, what practical steps can the U.S. and Korea take to strengthen supply chains against future crises?