The Korea Herald

[Los Angeles Times] Trump bungles his quest for the ‘ultimate deal’ in the Middle East

It’s not an indictment of President Donald Trump that he failed in his first year in office to broker what he once called “the ultimate deal” -- an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. After all, the effort to end that bitter conflict, which has been underway in one form or another for well over 100 years, also eluded his recent predecessors, despite intense effort and creative diplomacy.　Trump can be faulted, however, for his arrogance, his ignorance and his shortsightedness, which ul

Jan. 9, 2018

[Danielle DiMartino Booth] US households may rue the binge of 2017

Will 2018 be the year of the household hangover? The latest data on the saving rate, which broke under 3 percent to 2.9 percent in November, the lowest since 2007, suggests that an encore to the ebullient buying over the holidays will not happen in the new year.Without a doubt, households are as buoyant as they’ve been in years. In the most recent consumer confidence report, only 15.2 percent of those surveyed reported jobs were “hard to get,” a 16-year low. The few economists who have forecast

Jan. 9, 2018

[Albert R. Hunt] Congress will be different in 2018. Trump won’t.

Last year, congressional Republicans had the leverage to ram through a huge tax cut, repeal the requirement to buy health-insurance coverage, and put a conservative jurist on the Supreme Court. 　This year the tables have turned. Democrats, though still in the minority, have more leverage on spending and responses to the opioid epidemic, and maybe also on immigration and infrastructure and revisions to the Affordable Care Act.　Democrats have political tailwinds after winning big election victorie

Jan. 9, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] Liberal parking not condoned practice

Visit an apartment complex in Seoul at night. Cars are not just parked; they are packed in every corner of the compound. You could see any conceivable way of using space to leave a car for the night. The remainder are lined up on nearby streets until the next morning. Inside the complex, a small lane is left where one car can just barely pass. Passages for fire trucks have been narrowed and hydrants have been blocked. People push cars backward and forward the next morning to “dig out” their cars

Jan. 9, 2018

[Lee Jae-min] Liberal parking not condoned practice

[Kim Seong-kon] Is Korea reliable and trustworthy if loyalty is swayed?

When I studied at the State University of New York at Buffalo 40 years ago, I learned English poetry from the famous poet Robert Creeley. At the time, a host of celebrated American and Canadian poets visited the university for poetry readings. Whenever Bob Creeley introduced me to them, he almost always added after the formal introduction, “Mr. Kim is a reliable person.” It made me happy because I knew it was one of the best compliments an American can give. Indeed, if you are labeled as an unre

Jan. 9, 2018

[Nicolas Loris] Energy dominance can bolster US national security

In one of the latest presidential tweets to make headlines, President Trump responded to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s nuclear button threat by saying he had an even bigger and more powerful one.Whether you love or loathe the president’s tweets, one must look beyond the 280-character count to assess the administration’s foreign policies. A good place to start is the latest national security assessment. The report outlines the threats of North Korea, Russia and terrorist networks, but it al

Jan. 8, 2018

[Nicolas Loris] Energy dominance can bolster US national security

[Hal Brands] China hasn’t won the Pacific (unless you think it has)

Is China destined to dominate the Asia-Pacific? Among US allies and partners in the region, there seems to be a growing doubt that America can win the ongoing competition for influence with China, and that they must begin preparing for a regional order headed by Beijing. The challenge for America, then, is to ensure that this feeling of strategic fatalism doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy.It is an undeniable fact that China has been making a concerted and accelerating push for regional s

Jan. 8, 2018

[Hal Brands] China hasn’t won the Pacific (unless you think it has)

[Ferdinando Giugliano] Europe shouldn’t let a good recovery go to waste

Europe could not have asked for a better end to 2017. This week, data from the Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index showed that economic activity was the strongest in nearly seven years. The unemployment claims rate in Germany is at its lowest level since the early 1990s. Even Greece’s factories are enjoying the best run in nearly a decade.Indeed, the euro-zone economy must surely rank near to the top of any list of positive surprises of 2017. The European Commission believes the currency union exp

Jan. 8, 2018

[Los Angeles Times] Why the census shouldn’t try to count undocumented immigrants

The US constitution requires the federal government to conduct a national census every 10 years, a tally that is used to apportion various benefits among the states, including seats in the House of Representatives. It’s a difficult task, and a magnet for disputes. The first census, conducted in 1790, was done by federal marshals assigned to visit every home in their judicial district to count the numbers of free white men and white women, other free persons, and slaves. The enumerators came up w

Jan. 8, 2018

[Eli Lake] What a Soviet dissident sees in Iran’s unrest

French President Emmanuel Macron is deeply concerned. His government has expressed tempered support for the demonstrations in Iran, but for now he is more worried about the reaction of America, Israel and Saudi Arabia.This week he warned that the full-throated endorsement for the unrest in Iran by these governments “is almost one that would lead us to war.”Macron believes the consensus of most regional experts, who say that the leaderless protests in Iran are likely to fail. What’s more, any ful

Jan. 8, 2018

[Francis Wilkinson] Tough times for liberals mean it’s time to toughen up

Liberals are at a loss.　 The US president, who turned out to be more vile and duplicitous than they even had imagined, may or may not be indicted within a year’s time. Meantime, the US Congress is run by conservatives who, spurred by the greed of their donors and the fears of their base, are growing ever more comfortable telling blatant lies, preparing cover-ups and counter-narratives and overhauling the nation’s tax code in the manner of a Vegas caper -- hidden from view with the cash to be div

Jan. 7, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] This will be the year when the internet collides with reality

The onset of a new year brings plenty of predictions, and so I will hazard one: Many of the biggest events of 2018 will be bound together by a common theme, namely the collision of the virtual internet with the real “flesh and blood” world. This integration is likely to steer our daily lives, our economy, and maybe even politics to an unprecedented degree.　For instance, the coming year will see a major expansion of the Internet of Things, especially home and other smart devices subject to our co

Jan. 7, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] This will be the year when the internet collides with reality

[Ana Palacio] Europe’s chance in 2018

It has become a cliche to declare, each December, that the next year will be a crucial one for the European Union. The pattern is familiar: Europe has a turbulent 12 months, driven by events for which it was not prepared, jerry-rigs a response, and resolves to address the deeper structural issues. Then the next year arrives, and Europe is again overwhelmed by events, and becomes trapped again in short-term crisis-response mode. Will 2018 break the mold?The short answer is that it might -- or, at

Jan. 7, 2018

[David Ignatius] The Iranian people are showing their deep hunger for change

After visiting Tehran in 2013, I wrote that the Iranian capital seemed suspended somewhere between Pyongyang and Los Angeles. We’ve seen this past week how passionately Iranians want the latter, not the former -- as they denounced their impoverished garrison state and demanded a prosperous, modern future.Asking whether Iran’s demonstrations create a “pre-revolutionary” situation may miss the larger point. The process of change has already begun. The regime will use its instruments of repression,

Jan. 7, 2018

[David Ignatius] The Iranian people are showing their deep hunger for change

[Mikki Kendall] The perils of a cashless society

Visa last year offered up to 50 small businesses a $10,000 bounty to go cashless. Though it is still too early to know what will happen to the businesses that won the contest (Visa has not announced the winners yet), the key arguments in favor of cash-abandonment are that it would lead to more efficient service and carry a lower risk of theft. A recent New York Times article profiled restaurants in Manhattan that take only plastic, and boosters are looking forward to an entirely cashless society

Jan. 7, 2018

[Zaki Laidi] Europe’s multilateralism caught between Trump and Xi

The most recent World Trade Organization ministerial conference, held in December in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was a fiasco. Despite a limited agenda, the participants were unable to produce a joint statement. But not everyone was disappointed by that outcome: China maintained a diplomatic silence, while the United States seemed to celebrate the meeting’s failure. This is bad news for Europe, which was virtually alone in expressing its discontent.It is often pointed out that, in the face of US Pr

Jan. 7, 2018

[Zaki Laidi] Europe’s multilateralism caught between Trump and Xi

[Leonid Bershidsky] No, Iceland hasn’t solved the gender pay gap

Sen. Bernie Sanders says it’s worth following the example of “our brothers and sisters in Iceland” who last year passed the world’s most demanding law on equal pay for men and women. But the legislation, which took effect on Jan. 1, could end up hurting women without some added measures. Even ultra-egalitarian Iceland isn’t ready to take them. No other country has gone as far as Iceland in demanding equal pay for equal work. The 2017 law doesn’t just expose a company that violates the principle

Jan. 7, 2018

[Noah Feldman] Trump’s attempt to bully Bannon in court would fail

If President Donald Trump would actually sue Steve Bannon for violating a nondisclosure agreement made with his campaign, it would be great for the freedom of speech.That may sound strange, because Trump’s threatened lawsuit is precisely aimed to silence Bannon and other potential leakers who worked on the campaign. Bannon has been extensively quoted in excerpts published this week from the journalist Michael Wolff’s new book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”But Trump’s suit would

Jan. 7, 2018

[Jerry Useem] The hardest workers don‘t do the best work

At the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament in Brazil, the US midfielder Michael Bradley put up a statistic that wowed folks back home: He ran further than anyone else. Through three games, Bradley had covered a total of 23.4 miles, according to a micro-transmitter embedded in his cleat, while his team finished tops among nations in “work rate,” a simple measure of movement per minute otherwise known as running around.Commentators at the New York Times, US News, and NBC Sports were duly impressed. L

Jan. 5, 2018

[Jerry Useem] The hardest workers don‘t do the best work

[Scott Lemiex] Remember, much of what Trump does can be undone

President Donald Trump finally got the major legislation he wanted when Congress passed a massive tax cut. Whether this will be an enduring legacy, however, is another question. The next Democratic Congress should be able to undo much of the tax bill -- and, for that matter, much of what this administration has wrought through legislation. As the so-called resistance looks ahead to another year of protest, Trump opponents should distinguish between what’s likely to stick, and what isn’t.For all

Jan. 5, 2018