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Begin New Search Topic Security Political Geography United States of America Content Type Special Report Publishing Institution Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) Publication Year within 5 Years

1. 2020 Report on American Attitudes Toward the Korean Peninsula

Author:
Troy Stangarone and Juni Kim
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
KEI’s 2020 Report on American Attitudes Toward the Korean Peninsula focuses on U.S. views on relations with South Korea, U.S. awareness of South Korean brands and cultural products, and views on North Korea and was conducted by YouGov. The results reveal that while Americans have a favorable view of South Korea and about half are supportive of maintaining U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula, few Americans watched or listened to Korean cultural products in the last year. Americans also view North Korea as one of the three critical challenges for the United States, but fewer than 1-in-3 approve of the administration’s handling of North Korea.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Economics, Human Rights, Politics, Culture, Public Opinion, and Domestic Policy
Political Geography:
North America, Korean Peninsula, and United States of America

2. Monetizing The Linchpin: Trump's Foreign Policy versus the U.S.-Korea Alliance's Value to Washington

Author:
Kyle Ferrier
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
The Trump administration’s increased emphasis on the cost of the U.S.-South Korea alliance has called into question its appreciation of Seoul’s contributions and raised concerns about the future of the relationship. Amid this uncertainty, this paper highlights key, yet underappreciated benefits that Washington receives from a strong alliance with Seoul. The cost-centric approach being applied to the U.S.-South Korea relationship follows an overarching trend in U.S. foreign policy under Trump, which the paper terms as “trading intangibles for tangibles.” In effect, the White House greatly underestimates the intangible value of longstanding U.S. foreign policy norms, often leveraging them—and in doing so, undermining them—in favor of short-term economic gains. Though intrinsically more difficult to quantify in dollars, intangible aspects of U.S. foreign policy have much greater financial and economic value to the United States. Consequently, and counterproductively, the Trump administration’s approach may actually prove to challenge the U.S. financially, even in areas where the economy isn’t directly involved, such as the U.S. alliance system. In the case of South Korea, Washington is putting its alliance credibility—consisting of deterrence against Pyongyang and assurance with Seoul—on the line by attempting to extract major financial concessions from Seoul, chiefly through military burden-sharing negotiations. The annual $5 billion contribution the U.S. is reportedly asking South Korea to agree to by the end of the year is a steep jump from the just under $1 billion Seoul agreed to earlier in the year. However, this annual $5 billion is dwarfed by what strong alliance credibility with Seoul provides Washington, which is at risk from the Trump administration’s intensified focus on cost. Still, the challenge remains that the nature of these benefits makes them difficult to quantify in dollars. To bridge this gap, the paper recontextualizes existing monetary figures across an array of areas to illustrate a baseline value of the key security benefits Washington enjoys through a strong U.S.-South Korea alliance—essentially, “tangibilizing” the intangibles. Though the actual list of benefits is far more expansive, the three explored in the paper are: preventing the return of armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula, fostering foreign policy convergence on the Korean Peninsula, and supporting common values in the Indo-Pacific.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Alliance, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America