After the U.S. presidential election, many experts were concerned about the policies of the new U.S. administration and how they might affect East Asia and the Korean economy in particular.
Whether it was the British vote to leave the European Union in June or the impeachment of the South Korean President Park Geun-hye in December, 2016 will be remembered for a series of unexpected events and the questions they have raised about how they may shape the future.
The South Korean government has been pretty creative in its search for a solution to their rock bottom birth rate – from subsidies for fertility treatment to encouraging employees to go home without saying goodbye to their boss. But one of the country’s giant conglomerates is taking a more drastic step by mandating that their male employees take a month off after having a child.
When looking at jobs and the KORUS FTA there are three additional factors to consider – trade in services, foreign direct investment, and items covered by the KORUS FTA.
South Korea faces a household debt crisis. Household debt reached more than 1,257 trillion won ($1.1 trillion) in the second quarter of this year, up 125.7 trillion won and 11.1 percent from a year ago. This marks the highest level for household debt since the government began compiling related data in 2002.
Fulfilling its role as a leading “middle power,” Korea should move to join a rump Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that would include the eleven nation states who negotiated the TPP with the United States.
The South Korean economy is drifting like a ship which has lost its captain while the ‘Choi Soon-sil Scandal,’ a civilian who has no official title, has shaken South Korea for over a month.
Not all is easy for Kim Jong-un as he must soon make important and probably irrevocable decisions with respect to how far he will allow the market economy to expand.
Unlike past U.S. elections, President-elect Donald Trump has made trade a centerpiece of his campaign.
Do claims of the KORUS FTA costing the United States 100,000 jobs hold up?