The Korea Herald

[Pankaj Mishra] Trump’s not alone against free trade

Threatening tariffs on imports from China, President Donald Trump has provoked swift vows of retaliation from Beijing, shaken financial markets and generated great uncertainty and confusion. Long before China started to run huge trade surpluses against the US, he ranted against American trade partners. Other countries, he claimed in 1999, “can’t believe how easy it is to deal with the US. We are known as a bunch of saps.” Elevated to the White House, Trump has turned into a reckless trade warrio

April 18, 2018

[Pankaj Mishra] Trump’s not alone against free trade

[Conor Sen] Choice for US regulators: Follow China or EU?

This seems to be the year when Americans hit the pause button on the advance of technology in their daily lives and grapple with how we got here and where we’re going.　My Bloomberg colleague Tyler Cowen has written about a looming clash between the values of Washington and of the San Francisco Bay Area. They are indeed quite different cultures, and as each considers the future of tech, they will find models outside the US: the European style, and the Chinese approach.　The European model came up

April 18, 2018

[James Stavridis] How Trump can reach ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Syria

I understand what President Donald Trump was trying to express in his now-famous “Mission Accomplished” tweet Saturday.Trump said in the tweet, “A perfectly executed strike last night. Thank you to France and the United Kingdom for their wisdom and the power of their fine Military. Could not have had a better result. Mission Accomplished!”And in fairness, in the military we often do use that expression to convey the successful completion of a discrete tactical task.　But he should have understood

April 18, 2018

[James Stavridis] How Trump can reach ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Syria

[Jacquielynn Floyd] Former first lady Barbara Bush offers parting gift

In the spirit with which we mark life’s other landmark events, I would like to wish former first lady Barbara Bush a peaceful passing.　Mrs. Bush is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. It’s reflective of her characteristic candor that this was made public Sunday, when her family announced that she would no longer accept medical treatment other than palliative care.　Death is natural, but the systemic breakdowns that often lead up to it can be wrenching: painful, exhausting, dependent. A

April 18, 2018

[Michael McGrough] Pompeo puts on (mostly) diplomatic performance as Trump’s pick for new secretary of state

CIA Director Mike Pompeo made all the right noises -- well, most of the right noises -- during his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.　The former representative from Kansas and favorite of President Donald Trump promised to exhaust diplomacy before turning to a military solution to North Korea’s nuclear threat. He held out some hope that Trump might not walk away from the Iran nuclear agreement next month if the US and its European allies were close to te

April 17, 2018

[Joe Nocera] Trump’s right about this: Post Office needs reform

So President Donald Trump wants to reform the US Postal Service. Shall we welcome him to the club?　Let’s put aside for a moment the real -- and futile -- purpose of Thursday’s executive order calling for postal reforms: He wants to put the hurt on one of the USPS’ biggest customers, Amazon, whose chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post.　The post office does indeed need to be reformed. And do you know who the leading voices for reform are? The people who run the place. Let’s go back

April 17, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] How to become a truly advanced country?

Thanks to its miraculous economic success, South Korea has now become one of the most affluent countries in the world. With an economy ranked 12th largest in the world, South Korea is admired as a role model by many developing countries and praised for its advanced technology and Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, that have enhanced its prestige in the international community. Indeed, it would not be too far-fetched to say that today’s South Korea is an advanced country in terms of economy, technology,

April 17, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] How to become a truly advanced country?

[Ted Gover] US allies’ interests need to be represented at Trump-Kim summit

President Donald Trump’s historic decision to meet Kim Jong-un to address the North Korea nuclear crisis brings with it opportunities for a peaceful resolution as well as risks. Among the many priorities involving this summit, President Trump must safeguard the interests of US allies while striving for verifiable North Korean disarmament. 　Protecting the security interests of Seoul and Tokyo during the summit is critical for continuing America’s role of maintaining stability in East Asia as it h

April 17, 2018

[Anya Schiffrin] A cautionary tale for media regulators

To understand the possible consequences of US President Donald Trump’s constant denunciations of the press, one need look no further than Ecuador, where former President Rafael Correa’s government attacked the news media for years. During his 2007-2017 presidency, Correa implemented a raft of measures aimed at stifling press freedom. And, like Trump, he regularly used the media as a whipping boy to rally his supporters.In 2015, Correa managed to pass a constitutional amendment recategorizing com

April 17, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] AI changes everything, but how far can it go?

As Artificial Intelligence is rippling through every corner of our lives, ethical challenges and philosophical issues are also coming our way. The most important question is: what is the outer limit of the AI technology? Recent incidents involving AI in the military sector offer some silhouette of a possible answer.Now, AI is making an inroad into the defense industry. Autonomous weapons are becoming a reality. Taken to its technical extreme, it will not be too long before we see fully autonomou

April 17, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] AI changes everything, but how far can it go?

[Tyler Cowen] Syria war’s game theory is too complex to predict

Some strategic games are too complex to be readily modeled, and when we see such games in the real world that’s exactly when we should be the most worried. That’s my immediate reaction to the situation in Syria and environs.　Consider the distinct yet interrelated clashes going on. Not only did the US strike early Saturday at Syria’s chemical weapons facilities after the regime used such weapons against its citizens in Douma, but tensions between Israel and Iran have been escalating. It seems tha

April 16, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] Syria war’s game theory is too complex to predict

[Hal Brands] Four big risks from Bolton’s National Security Council purge

Give John Bolton credit for one thing: He knows how to make an entrance. During his first week on the job, the new national security adviser has initiated a purge of the National Security Council staff, pushing several top aides to resign, with more departures likely on the way. This internal shakeup is fully within Bolton’s prerogatives, and it is surely intended to get a notoriously discordant administration singing from the same sheet of music. In reality, however, it may just exacerbate the

April 16, 2018

[Hal Brands] Four big risks from Bolton’s National Security Council purge

[Chloe Morin] Strikes don’t have to derail Macron’s plans

When the French government unveiled its plan to make the national railway company more competitive and curtail benefits for some workers, commentators in France feared crippling protests comparable to those in 1995, when Alain Juppe’s government had to backtrack on rail sector reforms. Early signs were that President Emmanuel Macron would escape a similar fate. Polls showed support for his approach and the rail unions were divided in their response.　Public support then started to fade, and the o

April 16, 2018

[Tricia Bishop] I downloaded my Facebook data. I’m amused -- and disturbed

My presence on Facebook is fairly minimal. I keep my “friends” list small and I post infrequently. So I wasn’t too surprised when the social media company said I likely was not among the more than 87 million users whose data were swept up by Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm connected to Donald Trump and possibly Russia’s interference in our 2016 election.　But as Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered questions before Congress about online privacy and his company’s reac

April 16, 2018

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Global warming is central bank issue

Central bankers have been dubbed “masters of the universe” for the tools and powers they have acquired since the financial crisis. Some of them now want to play a more active role in the fight against climate change.　Monetary authorities are right to be mindful of the way in which climate risk affects their mandate to ensure price stability and guard financial stability. But that is different from seeking to promote the shift to a “greener” economy, which is the role of government.　Last week, ce

April 16, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] Fixing roof while sun is shining

Spring is the season of big meetings -- Davos, Boao and coming this weekend, the Spring Meetings of the IMF/World Bank in Washington. Here, the Davos men (and increasingly women) gather with central bankers, ministers of finance, bankers, policy wonks and academia to debate the state of the world. These are often casts of thousands, listening to the latest guru expounding on technology, politics, trade and finance.I was in Lake Como last week at a smaller conference hosted by the Italian think t

April 15, 2018

[Andrew Sheng] Fixing roof while sun is shining

[Michael Schuman] In trade spat, China has secret weapon

Markets are quivering as fears of a US-China trade war ebb and flow. Thus far, they’ve mostly been focused on tariffs that President Donald Trump wants to impose on a range of Chinese goods, and China’s threats to retaliate. But investors may be overlooking a bigger risk in this dispute.　It’s true that duties on US imports would hurt -- hands are already wringing in farm country -- but there’s a limit to how much pain they can really inflict. The persistent worry that China will dump its mammoth

April 15, 2018

[Michael Schuman] In trade spat, China has secret weapon

[Michael Dempsey] US and China have bigger problems than trade war

The tit-for-tat trade sanctions fight between the US and China may be getting the headlines and rocking financial markets, but some less-noticed recent flare-ups between the world’s pre-eminent powers may present more lasting, and perilous, complications for American policymakers.　The new National Defense and National Security Strategies produced by the Donald Trump administration made clear that Washington has a decidedly more pessimistic outlook on its future relationship with China. For years

April 15, 2018

[Jeffrey Sachs] Facebook and future of online privacy

Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, recently noted that the public scrutiny of Facebook is “very much overdue,” declaring that “it’s shocking to me that they didn’t have to answer more of these questions earlier on.” Leaders in the information technology sector, especially in Europe, have been warning of the abuses by Facebook (and other portals) for years. Critics of Facebook have been making this point for years. Stefano Quintarelli, one of Europe’s top IT experts and a leading advocate fo

April 15, 2018

[Komal Sri-Kumar] Dollar an unexpected casualty of trade spat with China

In recent weeks, investors have witnessed a rare concurrence of market developments. Widespread concern about escalating trade conflicts has caused equities to plunge and US Treasury yields to decline. So far, the reaction has been a textbook case of investor behavior.　Yet, for all the turmoil, the dollar did not prove to be a safe harbor, and has remained weak against major world currencies. The new dynamic holds an important lesson for investors. As President Donald Trump ratchets up the rheto

April 15, 2018