The Korea Herald

[Joshua C. Kendall] Long before Stormy Daniels, there was Tempest Storm

As Americans consider Stormy Daniels’ story of her alleged 2006 affair with President Trump, we might want to acknowledge that she isn’t the first adult entertainer to reportedly hook up with a future president. In 1955, the politician was Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy and the other woman was a stripper named Tempest Storm. The different manner in which Americans have digested these parallel tales reveals a lot about how our nation has evolved -- and not -- over the last half-century.　Tempe

March 29, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] These trade jabs don’t mean war -- yet

So is a trade war upon us? President Donald Trump announced last week that the US would place $60 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods, but what does that mean for the future of world trade? This conflict seems more likely to remain a modest spat than to blossom into a slugfest.　First of all, China responded to Trump’s $60 billion in tariffs with a $3 billion tariff retaliation, one-twentieth of the initial amount. That’s a sign that China is seeking reconciliation rather than escalation. I

March 28, 2018

[Tyler Cowen] These trade jabs don’t mean war -- yet

[Kim Myong-sik] Nation enters ‘warmest spring’ in history

To a friend of mine who was about to go on a long European journey from early next month, I joked, “Korea may have been reunified by the time you returned home.” He retorted, “Well, then I will take the land route via Beijing and Pyongyang on the way back.”　Things may not develop as quickly as that, but the Korean Peninsula this spring will certainly make headlines with summits scheduled between top South and North Korean leaders and then between US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. 　Armed

March 28, 2018

[Kim Myong-sik] Nation enters ‘warmest spring’ in history

[Trudy Rubin] What H.R. McMaster’s exit, John Bolton’s arrival mean

If there were ever any checks on the erratic, impulsive Trump foreign policy, they nearly vanished last week.　President Donald Trump’s replacement of national security adviser H.R. McMaster with the uber-hawkish John Bolton practically guarantees that the president will walk away from the Iran nuclear deal in May. And Bolton’s call for a pre-emptive attack on North Korea makes any prospects for a Trump-Kim Jong-un summit look slimmer than they already were.　Yet, the scariest thing about Bolton i

March 28, 2018

[Lee Jong-soo] Trump-Kim summit is only the beginning

Much remains uncertain about the upcoming Trump-Kim summit. Though caution is necessary in dealing with North Korea, the US officials preparing for this unprecedented event must be open to all possible outcomes, including a real breakthrough paving the way for positive changes in North Korea and the end of the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula. 　First, it is important to not set expectations too high. This is only the first ever summit between North Korea and the US. One cannot expect to solve al

March 28, 2018

[John Robertson] Culture shock: Goal for globally competent

Spring is the season for students and young professionals to be making plans. The coming summer is a good time to jump on internships and work opportunities or to get extra credit through summer academic programs. High school and college seniors in particular will look beyond graduation dates, considering options for employment or continuing education.　Many in this situation may already be considering going abroad. I would like to take that idea a step further and make the case for going “off th

March 28, 2018

[Robert J Fouser] Korea needs parliamentary system

Last week, South Koreans saw the arrest of yet another former president as Lee Myung-bak was taken to jail on charges of graft. Lee won a landslide victory in December 2007 and served as president from 2008 to 2013. In the 1990s, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo were jailed, and Park Geun-hye was jailed shortly after being removed from power a year ago.To date, no Korean president has left office without controversy. Before the restoration of democracy in 1987, presidents left office either through

March 27, 2018

[Robert J Fouser] Korea needs parliamentary system

[David Ulin] President Trump’s war against California is war against country

The evening before the 2016 presidential election, California Gov. Jerry Brown joked at a political dinner in Sacramento, “If Trump were ever elected, we’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country.”At the time, it seemed a safe-ish bit of humor because, of course, Hillary Clinton would win. When she didn’t, I came to imagine Brown’s remark as the opening volley establishing California as the state of resistance -- unique, independent, distinct from

March 27, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Korean men’s follies in folktales

If folktales are reflections of the society that produced them, then Korean folktales surely exhibit a plethora of Korean men’s chronic, incorrigible follies. Reading Korean folktales, one may wonder how Korean women -- far smarter and wiser -- could put up with such hopelessly pathetic but obstinate Korean men. In fact, Korean women have always had to endure all sorts of ordeals due to the incredible stupidity and stubbornness of their embarrassingly infantile partners. Numerous foreign invasio

March 27, 2018

[Kim Seong-kon] Korean men’s follies in folktales

[Justin Fendos] Trade war is opportunity

The US President Donald Trump appears set on having a trade war with China. With initial tariffs exchanged, White House rhetoric has made clear the goal is to rebalance trade relations and establish better “reciprocity”. Everyone involved is going to get hurt but wherein lies conflict, there also awaits opportunity.Let’s put aside the fact that Trump has demonstrated a serious misunderstanding about how economies work. His statements on trade deficits being indicative of lost national wealth is

March 27, 2018

[Leonid Bershidsky] Escalation with Russia just became more likely

Despite a propaganda blitz meant to shift the blame for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK earlier this month, Russia looks set to face bruising consequences. The newfound unity among European Union leaders on the matter and the appointment of fierce Russia hawk John Bolton as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser are potential precursors of collective Western action against Russia.　The difficulty lies in figuring out how far that ac

March 27, 2018

[Hal Brands] Trump’s new national security guru: Himself

Donald Trump is becoming the president he always envisioned himself being -- and that many of the foreign-policy hands who opposed his candidacy always feared.　Some critics view the removal of General H.R. McMaster as national security adviser, and his replacement by the longtime Republican hawk John Bolton, as proof that the president is looking for more “Trumpist” figures who will reinforce his inclination to deconstruct American global engagement. Actually, Bolton is not a full-throated suppo

March 26, 2018

[Hal Brands] Trump’s new national security guru: Himself

[Leonid Bershidsky] Why the EU approved Bayer-Monsanto

The European Union’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has a reputation as something of an activist because of her willingness to take on US tech giants. And yet she has approved what is, from a leftist activist point of view, a particularly evil deal, Germany-based Bayer’s acquisition of US-based Monsanto.　The $66 billion deal creates an incredible concentration in the seed and pesticide markets. If it’s approved in the US, too, the three biggest companies in this market -- Bayer-Mo

March 26, 2018

[Francis Wilkinson] The NRA’s strategic blunder

You had to be there.　As Americans took to the streets Saturday, defying a political order that, in Washington and many state capitals, has allowed extremists to write gun laws, the bodies -- of both the dead and the living who marched in their honor -- mattered a lot. Hundreds of thousands in cities big and small showed up. It was an extraordinary coming-out party for a movement that is now, at long last, undeniably mass.　The marches against gun violence would not have been as big without the un

March 26, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Putin is testing Trump on Syria. Is he even aware?

Want to view the costs of President Donald Trump’s persistent pursuit of Vladimir Putin?　Look no further than Syria, where the Kremlin is determined to drive out US forces that are assisting the Syrian Kurds who defeated the Islamic State group. The consequence would be a likely return of jihadis to Syria along with a strengthening of Iranian influence. Putin’s role as Mideast kingpin would be strengthened.　But Trump has no clue. Just this week, he rebuffed aides’ advice for a phone call with Pu

March 26, 2018

[Trudy Rubin] Putin is testing Trump on Syria. Is he even aware?

[Noah Smith] As long as there are humans, there will be jobs

Predicting the course of technological progress is extremely difficult. Just because worries about human obsolescence ultimately turned out to be misplaced in the Industrial Revolution doesn’t mean that the same happy result must necessarily prevail this time around. So the persistent question about artificial intelligence -- or “robots” in common parlance -- is whether they will make human workers obsolete.Recent rapid progress in machine learning -- a very powerful and flexible statistical pre

March 26, 2018

[Michael Schuman] Is Trump playing into Xi’s hands?

US President Donald Trump has finally carried out his threats on trade with China, announcing Thursday the start of a process that will lead to sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports and restrictions on Chinese investments. Trump hopes to compel a recalcitrant China to end a range of unfair business practices and open its market wider to US companies, thus reducing the large US trade deficit.　In fact, Trump could be doing just the opposite -- taking the pressure off Chinese President Xi Jinping rat

March 25, 2018

[Michael Schuman] Is Trump playing into Xi’s hands?

[Hal Brands] Why the US is back in business with ‘good’ authoritarians

From Eastern Europe to Southeast Asia, the US increasingly finds itself working with some illiberal regimes in order to contain others. Consider: Vietnam, an authoritarian, one-party state, recently hosted a US aircraft carrier for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, continuing a long-term expansion of defense ties between the two former enemies.Poland, a backsliding, illiberal democracy, has become one of the cornerstones of Washington’s efforts to shore up NATO’s deterrence agains

March 25, 2018

[Hal Brands] Why the US is back in business with ‘good’ authoritarians

[Abdulla Saif Al Nuaimi] UAE and S. Korea, two strategic partners on right track

It goes without saying that the United Arab Emirates and the Republic of Korea have maintained distinguished bilateral ties since the establishment of diplomatic relations in the early 1980s. The Republic Of Korea opened its embassy in Abu Dhabi in 1980, while the UAE opened its embassy in the Korean capital of Seoul in 1987. In 2009, the two countries upgraded their bilateral ties to a strategic partnership.Despite being located on opposite sides of the Asian continent, each of the two nations

March 25, 2018

[Abdulla Saif Al Nuaimi] UAE and S. Korea, two strategic partners on right track

[Timothy L. O’Brien] What Bolton should know about working for Trump

“Trump adviser” is an oxymoron. Thus it has always been, and thus it shall ever be.　President Donald Trump has rarely sought or heeded the advice of others, beginning several decades ago when he was a young developer in New York, through his years as a tabloid fixture and reality TV star, and on into the White House.　The president trusts his own instincts first and foremost, and lacks the attention span, curiosity and empathy to take other points of view on board. This should be no revelation to

March 25, 2018