Asia

South Korea is hardly alone in facing the uncertainties of the new Trump administration. Moreover, it is impossible to consider South Korea’s response to Trump’s foreign policy without considering how…

The return of U.S. President Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 has brought a renewed emphasis on “America First” foreign policy, marked by a strategic retrenchment that challenges…

The U.S. presidential election marked the beginning of a new era of retrenchment. The new Donald Trump administration, inaugurated in January 2025, has swiftly shifted U.S. priorities to emphasize domestic…

The Fall 2024 issue of Korea Policy, Broadening the Alliance: New Frontiers in US-South Korea Cooperation, is a special issue focused on the US-ROK alliance. The issue is motivated by…

    In the mid-1990s, North Korea experienced a famine that by some estimates wiped out 10 percent of the population. Though many at the time thought the regime would…

      Over the last decade, China has become an increasingly important country for South Korea has it has emerged as Seoul’s largest trading partner and a leading player…

    On April 8, North Korea withdrew all of its workers from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, temporarily placing on hold the last form of cooperation between North and South…

South Korea’s nuclear energy industry has for decades been facilitated through close cooperation with counterparts in the United States under what is known as a “123 Agreement”.  Today South Korea’s…

By Jenna Gibson After the surprise October 30 announcement that South Korea and China will begin working together to facilitate better relations between the two countries and that Presidents Moon and Xi would soon meet for a summit, speculation soared that there will finally be a détente between Seoul and Beijing, which have been locked…

By Donald Manzullo Part of President Moon’s plans for re-invigorating his country’s economy is to address the huge problem of unemployment and underemployment, especially among Korea’s youth. Over 11 percent of those between 15 and 29 are not employed, a figure that is almost three times the rate of the jobless. Koreans have long had…

By Troy Stangarone Since South Korea decided to move forward with the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in the aftermath of North Korea’s fourth nuclear test last year, China has made its opposition to the deployment clear and attempted to use targeted economic pressure to convince South Korea to not…

By Troy Stangarone If negotiating a nuclear deal with North Korea was already a fraught proposition, President Donald Trump’s decision to no longer certify the Iran nuclear deal despite Iran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) just made that prospect all the more difficult. For decades one of the main obstacles to…