Eye on Korea

Korea Economic Institute
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The Korea Economic Institute of America is pleased to present Eye on Korea, a program designed to provide expert analysis on the most pressing issues shaping US-Korea relations. [KEI is registered under the FARA as an agent of the KIEP, a public corporation established by the government of the Republic of Korea. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.]

  1. 3h ago

    What Replaced the Tariffs the Supreme Court Struck Down | Eye on Korea Ep. 42

    The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs on February 20, 2026, holding that the statute never authorized the President to impose them. The tariff era did not end there. It moved to other statutes. First a 10 percent Section 122 surcharge, then a Section 301 forced-labor action took effect, imposing duties of 10 to 12.5 percent on roughly sixty economies covering the overwhelming majority of U.S. imports. Korea is on that list, and Korea is also one of sixteen economies under a second Section 301 investigation into structural excess capacity in manufacturing. Barbara Weisel spent thirteen years as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific and served as the U.S. chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership from its inception through its signing. Earlier at USTR she held the Korea portfolio as Deputy Assistant USTR for Bilateral Asian Affairs. In this episode she takes up the legal durability of the authorities now carrying U.S. tariff policy, how Section 301 differs from IEEPA and Section 122 in ways that may make it harder to challenge, the widening use of Section 232 across metals, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, and the tension between tariffing the inputs American factories need and the reshoring those tariffs are meant to produce. She also assesses whether the U.S.-China truce holds through the fall summitry, what it will take to move Korea's investment commitments from memorandum to disbursement, and what Seoul should do differently in Washington. [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  2. 20h ago

    Nuclear Submarines and the Limits of the 123 Agreement | Eye on Korea Ep. 41

    President Donald Trump said South Korea’s nuclear-powered submarines would be built at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard. Joyce Connery explains why they may not be built there, and what the actual construction path means for a U.S.-South Korea nuclear agenda that has grown beyond the agreement governing it. Connery is Principal Owner of Connery Strategies and a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council. She served as Chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and was the first Director of Nuclear Energy Policy at the National Security Council (NSC), one of three NSC tours in a federal career of more than two decades that also included roles at the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Connery discusses why a commercial shipyard is not a facility qualified for naval nuclear work, implications of the AUKUS precedent for South Korea, and why naval propulsion falls outside the 2015 Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy, also known as the 123 Agreement. They also cover the June 2026 working-group consultations in Seoul, Korea’s near-term fuel assurance arrangements, the restructuring of South Korean reactor export governance, what allied deterrence consultation can deliver as North Korea’s arsenal expands, and more. The conversation follows Connery's July 2026 ROK-U.S. Policy Brief, “Operationalizing U.S.-ROK Nuclear Cooperation,” published jointly by the Seoul National University Institute for Peace and Unification Studies and the George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies. Click here to read the full brief: [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  3. Jul 30

    Can a Middle Power Run Its Own Grand Strategy? | Eye on Korea Ep. 40

    South Korea is running a deliberate grand strategy, pursuing autonomy and freedom of action while keeping the U.S.-South Korea alliance intact and turning the trade power and influence it has built into real leverage, says Dr. Andrew Yeo on this week’s Eye on Korea. In this episode, he lays out what that strategy looks like and whether a country constrained by larger powers can actually pull it off. Drawing on his forthcoming book on South Korean grand strategy, Yeo details the assets Seoul holds to manage its external security environment and uncertainty from the Donald Trump administration. That strategy is being tested against a fast-moving backdrop, as North Korea runs its most active diplomacy in years. Yeo unpacks how leader Kim Jong Un is managing his two great-power patrons at once, whether he is playing China and Russia against each other or charting a new approach, and what the North Korea-Russia relationship has done for the country domestically and abroad. He also weighs the prospects for an inter-Korean summit between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Kim, the conditions for renewed diplomacy between the United States and North Korea, and the role denuclearization can realistically play in U.S. policy toward the Korean Peninsula. Andrew Yeo is Senior Fellow and SK-Korea Foundation Chair at the Brookings Institution's Center for Asia Policy Studies and Professor of Politics at The Catholic University of America. He is co-editor of Great Power Competition and Overseas Bases: Chinese, Russian, and American Force Posture in the 21st Century. [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  4. Jul 16

    Why Democracy Is Still Winning in Korea | Eye on Korea Ep. 39

    South Korea’s democracy has weathered stress tests few others have—moving from a night of martial law to a presidential impeachment and a snap election—causing the V-Dem’s 2025 report to downgrade the country from “liberal democracy” to “electoral democracy” amid a broader democratic retreat. Derek Mitchell, former U.S. Ambassador to Burma and former President of the National Democratic Institute, argues that South Korea is demonstrating precisely what a strong democracy is capable of through accountability, reforms, and transparency. Mitchell also widens the lens to the global picture, weighing the forces that could threaten a worldwide tide of democratic decline and the resilience of democracies like South Korea and Taiwan as geostrategic competition in Northeast Asia intensifies. The conversation also examines how South Korea is managing U.S.-China competition, from the weaponization of trade to the prospect of a Taiwan contingency, U.S. expectations of South Korea in a regional conflict, and the priorities underlying the Trump administration’s call for alliance modernization. The episode also includes discussion on the warm South Korea-Japan relationship, the more fraught state of South Korea-China ties, defense exports, North Korea, and more. [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  5. Jun 29

    K-Defense Goes Global | Eye on Korea Ep. 38

    South Korea’s defense industry has gone from supplying its own military to arming others, and “K-defense” is now one of Seoul’s fastest-growing exports. Rob Rapson, a career U.S. diplomat who spent decades shaping the U.S.-South Korea relationship, joins Scott Snyder to trace how South Korean arms sales went global and their implications for the country’s relationship with Europe as it competes for, and supplies into, the region’s rearmament. Rapson also walks through South Korea’s decades-deep footprint in the Middle East, from construction contracts to defense deals, and assesses the energy crisis impacting one of the world’s most energy-dependent advanced economies. The conversation also examines the Lee Jae Myung administration, its approach to Washington, and the surprising warmth of the South Korea-Japan relationship, as well as potential speed bumps Rapson sees ahead. The episode also discusses security issues within the alliance, including North Korea, the wartime operational control conversation, the U.S.-South Korea 123 agreement, and South Korea’s bid for civilian nuclear participation. [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  6. Jun 18

    Why China-North Korea Military Cooperation Should Alarm Washington | Eye on Korea Ep. 37

    Xi Jinping just spent two days in Pyongyang, his first trip to North Korea in nearly seven years, and the message was hard to miss. China is reinvesting in a relationship it had let cool, and the military side of that reinvestment is exactly what should worry Washington and Seoul. Youngjun Kim of the Korea National Defense University joins us to unpack these developments. The episode begins with the summit itself and what Xi and Kim actually signaled to one another, then gets into whether warmer ties could eventually produce something as concrete as joint China-North Korea military exercises. Kim walks through North Korea’s long habit of hedging between China and Russia, why North Korea’s deepening partnership with Russia complicates that balancing act, and how the so-called axis of upheaval is starting to chip away at U.S. primacy across the Indo-Pacific. Kim lays out North Korea’s growing uranium stockpile and what it means for the nuclear picture, why intelligence-sharing among U.S. allies has stopped being optional, and where South Korea fits in the region’s security architecture.  He argues that China is too powerful for South Korea not to continue building its own defenses, weighs whether South Korean nuclear-powered submarines are really aimed at China rather than North Korea, and closes on the commercial side of the partnership and the issue of OPCON transition. Youngjun Kim is Dean and Professor at the Korea National Defense University’s School of Strategic Studies, a Non-Resident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research, a member of the ROK-US Nuclear Energy Cooperation Advisory Board, and Vice President of the Korea Nuclear Policy Society. [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  7. Jun 9

    South Korea Wants a Bigger Seat at the Table | Ep. 36

    Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg returns to Eye on Korea, making the case that South Korea has become a legitimate middle power with one of the fastest-growing defense-industrial bases, growing its reach from Africa to the Middle East while recalibrating the U.S.-South Korea alliance at the center of its security posture. Ambassador Goldberg traces how pragmatism has come to define the Lee Jae Myung administration’s outreach to Japan and policies toward the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Along with KEI President and CEO Scott Snyder, Ambassador Goldberg discusses South Korea’s interpretation of the Iran war, its ambiguity regarding a Taiwan contingency, and its read on a Trump trade policy Goldberg calls “extortionist.”    The episode also digs into the harder questions, including whether a seventy-year-old U.S. nuclear guarantee still carries the same weight, what the recent Xi Jinping-Kim Jong Un meeting in Pyongyang signals for a future Trump-Kim summit, and why OPCON transfer keeps slipping, a delay Goldberg argues is driven more by the military than by politics. Philip Goldberg served as U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from 2022 to 2025. Over a decades-long diplomatic career, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Colombia, the Philippines, and Bolivia; as Chief of Mission in Pristina, Kosovo; as Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; and as the coordinator for implementing U.N. sanctions on North Korea. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the American negotiating team at the Dayton Peace Conference, serving as chief of staff for the U.S. delegation. Ambassador Goldberg has received numerous honors, including Presidential Distinguished and Meritorious Service Awards and the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award. Like and subscribe to the Korea Economic Institute of America on YouTube for more U.S.-South Korea news, analysis, politics and more! Social Links: Website: https://keia.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/korea-economic-institute-of-america/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KoreaEconInstitute/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/koreaeconinst/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/koreaeconinst [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

  8. May 13

    OPCON Transfer Should Have Happened a “Long Time Ago” | Ep. 35

    Wartime operational control, or OPCON, should have been transferred from U.S. to South Korean forces. That is the case Ambassador Joseph Yun makes on Eye on Korea—South Korea must take primary responsibility for conventional warfare on the peninsula, and the alliance may be overdue for rebalancing.   Ambassador Yun served as acting U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from January to October 2025, capping a three-decade career in the Department of State that spanned major chapters of the U.S.-South Korea relationship. He joins Eye on Korea for a wide-ranging conversation on OPCON, alliance modernization, the Lee Jae Myung administration, and the future of South Korea as a middle power.   We also cover: 🔹 How the alliance is managing the back-to-back transitions from Joe Biden to Donald Trump in Washington and Yoon Suk Yeol to Lee Jae Myung in Seoul 🔹 Why the rule of law and due process are a “key point” of the U.S.-South Korea relationship, embedded in shared democratic values 🔹 Why form and process lead to substance—and how that principle runs through all aspects of alliance management 🔹 The economic dimension of the U.S.-South Korea relationship and why the tariff shock landed less hard in Seoul than elsewhere 🔹 The key differences between the Moon Jae-in and Lee Jae Myung administrations, and the interplay between progressivism and pragmatism 🔹 The factions inside South Korean domestic politics and what they signal for foreign policy 🔹 Why North Korea will not denuclearize, and whether a different approach, such as arms control, is now more fit for purpose 🔹 Optimal balancing between regional players, such as China, for South Korea’s long-term position 🔹 Whether the United States is still a benign hegemon or has become a more isolationist, transactional leader—and what each outcome means for the alliance and the Indo-Pacific 🔹 Alliance modernization, including strategic flexibility, nuclear-powered submarines, and relations with Japan 🔹 The future of Korea as a middle power in the twenty-first century   Ambassador Joseph Yun served as acting U.S. Ambassador to South Korea from January to October 2025. During his three-decade-plus career at the Department of State, Joe served in Korea-focused roles on multiple occasions, including as U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy during the first Trump administration. He was also U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Compact Negotiations, U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, among many other roles. Like and subscribe to the Korea Economic Institute of America on YouTube for more U.S.-South Korea news, analysis, politics and more! Social Links: Website: https://keia.org/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/korea-economic-institute-of-america/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KoreaEconInstitute/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/koreaeconinst/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/koreaeconinst [This material is distributed by KEI on behalf of the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.]

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The Korea Economic Institute of America is pleased to present Eye on Korea, a program designed to provide expert analysis on the most pressing issues shaping US-Korea relations. [KEI is registered under the FARA as an agent of the KIEP, a public corporation established by the government of the Republic of Korea. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.]

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  • Creator
    Korea Economic Institute
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    41
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Eye on Korea