[Editorial] Korea’s silicon trap

South Korea closed 2025 with numbers that appeared to cancel each other out. Exports surpassed $700 billion for the first time, and shipments in January 2026 set another record. Yet industrial production grew by just 0.5 percent last year, the weakest pace in five years. The economy looked triumphant from a distance and strangely inert up close. This statistical dissonance is not a quirk of timing but the signature of a deeper imbalance. The source of the illusion is semiconductors. The AI-drive

Feb. 2, 2026

[Yoo Choon-sik] Kospi’s rally tests economic reality

South Korea’s benchmark stock index has nearly doubled since President Lee Jae Myung took office, recording the highest rate of increase among major stock markets around the world. If one were to assign credit for this surge, a significant share belongs to the Lee administration, which since its launch has moved quickly and decisively to implement policies welcomed by investors. Of course, this is not to deny the role of external factors. The acceleration of artificial intelligence adoption worl

Feb. 2, 2026

[Man-Ki Kim] Post-Davos recalibration: From intelligent collaboration to fragmented dialogue

The 2026 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos was held under the theme “A Spirit of Dialogue.” The message was unmistakable: In a world marked by geopolitical tension, economic fragmentation and rapid technological change, dialogue has become indispensable. Yet for many observers, Davos 2026 felt less like a renewal of global cooperation and more like an acknowledgment of how deeply divided the international system has become. The contrast with Davos just one year earlier is strik

Feb. 2, 2026

The scissors at the BBQ table

I recently took a group of visiting friends to a pork belly barbecue restaurant. Most of them had been before. A few have become so adept at grilling that I now happily abdicate all table-side cooking responsibility, a small victory that brings me unmeasurable joy. But among us was a first-timer, and watching the evening unfold through their eyes reminded me how violent that initiation can be. Korean barbecue is not a meal so much as a controlled assault. The smoke, the heat, the grease-slick fl

Feb. 1, 2026

[Editorial] Administrative bloat

In an economy being reshaped by algorithms and automation, the most expensive wager a government can make is on permanence. Yet that is precisely what South Korea is doing in 2026. As generative AI accelerates downsizing and flattens hierarchies in the private sector, the Lee Jae Myung administration is charting a contrary course, expanding public payrolls to a six-year high. At a time when technology is teaching organizations how to do more with fewer people, the Korean government is choosing t

Jan. 30, 2026

[Lee Byung-jong] Canada’s message for Korea

In the snowy Swiss resort town of Davos last week, a middle-power country punched above its weight against a superpower neighbor. Inviting a rare standing ovation from the audience, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a powerful speech at the World Economic Forum, blasting the US for causing “a rupture in the world order” through its predatory America First policy. Arguing that the rules-based international order the US has championed for decades is fracturing, Carney called for a coal

Jan. 30, 2026

[Editorial] Seoul blindsided

In a sudden move, US President Donald Trump targeted South Korea, declaring that tariffs on Korean goods would be reverted to pre-trade deal levels. Earlier Tuesday, Trump said he was raising tariffs on South Korean exports to 25 percent from the current 15 percent, citing a delay in the country’s parliament approving the Seoul-Washington trade deal agreed upon last year. Although Trump did not name a specific bill, he appeared to be referring to the Special Act on Managing Korea-US Strategic In

Jan. 29, 2026

[Wang Son-taek] Sacrifices for democracy of South Korea

The news of former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan’s passing on Sunday has left me unable to steady my emotions for days. Many share my grief, probably because he was a national leader who served seven terms in the National Assembly and as prime minister. But I have an additional reason that cuts much deeper. He passed away at the age of 74, and it was too early to leave this world. I think his early death is related to his sacrifice for democracy and that is why I am so sad. Many people contributed

Jan. 29, 2026

[Christian Catalini] Every fintech has an AI question. Many are asking the wrong one

Fintech has spent the last fifteen years politely explaining that banks are software companies with a charter problem. Sometimes this is marketing. Sometimes it’s true. And sometimes it’s a reminder that the hardest part of financial services is not building an app -- it’s earning (and keeping) the right to touch other people’s money. AI makes that problem more acute, not less. The popular version of the AI story is that it’s a general-purpose technology that helps everyone. It writes code, summ

Jan. 29, 2026

[Jayati Ghosh] Gangster's-eye view of global power

There is a method behind the apparent madness of US President Donald Trump’s transactional, spheres-of-influence approach to geopolitics and the global economy. Nowhere has this logic been clearer than in his administration’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and its ongoing efforts to secure control of the country’s oil reserves by installing a client regime. At the core of Trump’s revival of the Monroe Doctrine — or the “Donroe Doctrine,” as he has rebranded it — lies th

Jan. 28, 2026

[Editorial] The end of patronage

For decades, the Korean Peninsula was treated in Washington less as a strategic problem than as a settled inheritance. The alliance ran on habit, memory and a quiet assumption that the US would always be there. The 2026 National Defense Strategy suggests that assumption is no longer valid. Released Friday, the document is not merely an update in language or force posture. It is a formal admission of American strategic fatigue. By elevating the Western Hemisphere to a near sacred defense priority

Jan. 28, 2026

[Kim Seong-kon] What does 'homeland' mean to us

Recently, I watched the Emmy Award-winning American drama series "Homeland" (2011-20) on Netflix with great enthusiasm. Initially, I was intrigued by the title because it had become a popular term in America in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Soon after 9/11, the US government launched the Department of Homeland Security and ratified the Patriot Act. Even in Korea, "homeland" has always been an important word that immediately evokes patriotism. I was enthralled by the recur

Jan. 28, 2026

[Lim Woong] America’s reckoning with Trump

When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, my spouse stared at the TV in disbelief and asked, “How on earth did America elect this president?” Wanting to give a thoughtful answer, I tried to explain the political logic as I understood it. “It’s the Republican base,” I said — especially many white working- and middle-class voters in the Rust Belt in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania — who probably felt deeply frustrated with the political establishment. After decades of globalization (remem

Jan. 27, 2026

[Lee Jae-min] Stepping back but not stepping away

The single most common question that I hear at conferences and events these days is about the future of the WTO. They ask: After all this, what is in store for the World Trade Organization? The Geneva-based international organization has been a lynchpin of multilateral trade with 166 members, but it has almost vanished from the radar screen in the face of ever-intensifying trade conflicts and disputes over tariffs, non-tariffs and everything else in many parts of the world. Few media outlets men

Jan. 27, 2026

[Editorial] Another vetting failure

What was wrong could not endure. President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday withdrew the nomination of Lee Hye-hoon as minister for planning and budget. Hong Ihk-pyo, senior presidential secretary for political affairs, said in a press briefing that Lee had “carefully reviewed the confirmation hearing and the public evaluation that followed.” Hong said Lee Hye-hoon, despite her career as a three-term lawmaker in the conservative camp, “did not meet the standard the public expects” of a minister for plann

Jan. 27, 2026