Economics

On May 1, 2023, KEI hosted a conversation between Ambassador Marc Knapper and Ambassador (ret.) Kathleen Stephens on potential new and expanded areas of trilateral cooperation between the United States,…

30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, people’s aspiration to establish a pluralistic liberal democracy appears to be under scrutiny around the world – anti-immigration policies dominate political…

Strategically located at the crossroads of Central Asia, China, and Russia, Mongolia has long attracted the attention of regional powers – including the Koreas. How is this traditionally-nomadic, but resource-rich,…

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…

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?