The Korea Herald

[Robert J. Fouser] Revisiting multicultural policies

Apr 10, 2018

The year 2008 is remembered most around the world for the financial crisis that brought on the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. In South Korea, 2008 is remembered as the first year of recently jailed Lee Myung-bak’s presidency. In spring, only months after his inauguration, massive demonstrations against the resumption of US beef imports caused Lee’s popularity to dip. In fall, the spreading financial crisis raised the specter of another 1997-style collapse, but Lee moved quickly, and Ko
[Kim Seong-kon] The courage to make apologies -- and accept them

Apr 10, 2018

These days, apologies seem to have become a controversial issue in Korea. When a scandal breaks out, we immediately demand that the person involved apologize. Some people apologize instantly, but others refuse. Either way, we do not forgive. When someone apologizes, we seldom accept the apology. We complain that the apology is not sincere enough. If the person refuses to apologize, we condemn him or her as an insolent, brazen creature. In fact, apologizing for something in Korean society is alwa
[Eli Lake] Expect Trump to strike Syrian forces again

Apr 10, 2018

If the past is a prelude, we should expect a US strike sometime soon against Syrian airfields.　A little more than a year ago, Syrian forces gassed rebels. The grotesque crime earned a condemnation tweet from President Donald Trump. And on April 7, 2017, the president ordered 59 Tomahawk missiles to the Shayrat Airfield, the base from which the attack had been launched. He told his Chinese counterpart about it over chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago.　Over the weekend it looked like history repeating. T
[Joseph E. Stiglitz] Trump’s trade confusion about multilateral trade

Apr 10, 2018

The trade skirmish between the United States and China on steel, aluminum and other goods is a product of US President Donald Trump’s scorn for multilateral trade arrangements and the World Trade Organization.Before announcing import tariffs on more than 1,300 types of Chinese-made goods worth around $60 billion per year, in early March, Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, which he justified on the basis of national security. Trump insists that a ta
[Gerald Kamens] The citizenship question

Apr 10, 2018

Over two decades ago, I relentlessly pursued a few score folks, who -- for reasons of forgetfulness, fear, apathy, orneriness, principle or a combination thereof -- had neglected or deliberately refused to fill in the decennial census questionnaire previously mailed to them.　It was a “temporary enumerator” summer job, paying $15.25 an hour, and, more to the point for this contracted government retiree, offering a chance to get out of my comfort zone.　Most of the people I tracked down were foreig
[Timothy L. O’Brien] Reality meets reality TV in Oval Office

Apr 9, 2018

The Trump Era began when the future president descended into Trump Tower’s lobby on June 16, 2015, aboard an escalator. He launched his campaign there with a speech in which he promised to build a “great, great wall on our southern border.”　Trump has clung to that idea ever since. On Wednesday he vowed to send the National Guard to the southern border to patrol the area until the wall is built.　Trump also vowed in that 2015 speech that “nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump,” referri
[Stephen Roach] US needs China more than China needs US

Apr 9, 2018

Not one to be outdone by any adversary, Donald Trump has upped the ante in a rapidly escalating trade war with China, threatening an additional $100 billion of tariffs on top of the initial round of $50 billion. In doing so, the Trump administration is failing to appreciate a crucial reality: The United States needs China more than China needs the US.　Yes, China is still an export-led economy, and the American consumer is its largest customer. But China’s export share of its gross domestic produ
[Cass R. Sunstein] Bad nudge from California

Apr 9, 2018

Should coffee come with a cancer warning?　As a matter of policy, the answer seems obvious: Of course not. As a matter of law, it’s much more complicated, at least in California. A tentative judicial ruling in Los Angeles County last week suggests that when people go to the local coffee place, their morning ritual is going to be accompanied by a jolt of fear.　It could potentially turn into a fiasco, I think, and it tells us something important about how well-intentioned laws can go badly wrong.　T
[Tyler Cowen] How gender relations define today’s politics

Apr 9, 2018

Explanations of the Donald Trump phenomenon often start with conservatives versus liberals, the rural-urban split, or perhaps race and immigration. Those all play a role, but the accumulation of evidence is validating a hypothesis from New York Times columnist Ross Douthat: A big and very fundamental split in American electoral politics today is between different understandings of sex and gender relations.　I am struck by a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. Millennial women, defined as the
[David Ignatius] Snapshots of soldiers on front lines of Syria

Apr 9, 2018

One face of the war in Syria that Americans don’t often see is the US Army trauma surgeon, standing in the midday sun on the outskirts of Raqqa, taking a brief break from her near-constant duty in the operating room treating Syrians whose limbs have been shattered by bombs and booby traps.The doctor is a lieutenant colonel serving with US special operations forces, and under the ground rules for my four-day trip to Syria in February, I’m not allowed to use her name. She’s a trim, clear-eyed woma
[Hal Brands] Trump’s trade victory over South Korea will end in defeat

Apr 8, 2018

Donald Trump says he got a “great deal” in renegotiating America’s bilateral trade agreement with South Korea. This is the first trade pact Trump has successfully revised, and it reflects the intellectual core of his America First approach to trade: The US can use its great economic and geopolitical leverage to drive harder bargains with weaker powers.　That approach appears to have worked in the South Korea case, at least in a modest way. But limitations and dangers lurk should the president try
[Jonathan Zimmerman] Where does MLK fit in today’s #MeToo world?

Apr 8, 2018

Last November, students protesting sexual violence at Morehouse College in Atlanta defaced a church named after the school’s most famous graduate. The Martin Luther King Jr. Chapel was spray-painted with the words “Practice what you preach Morehouse + end rape culture,” which police officers covered up with a brown tarp.　Today, the students might protest the sexual misconduct of Martin Luther King Jr. himself. Over the past few days, during commemorations of the 50th anniversary of his murder, w
[Daniel Griswold] There’s no ‘pot of gold’ at the end of a trade war with China

Apr 8, 2018

Amid our escalating trade war with China, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, tried to assure investors that, despite roiling stock markets, a “pot of gold” lies at the end of the dispute. But the brinkmanship on both sides is more likely to cost Americans a pot of gold in disrupted trade and lost economic opportunity.　 The spat between the world’s two largest trading nations started last month with US tariffs on steel and aluminum; China responded in kind with tariffs o
[Stephen L. Carter] Spies tracking our phones? Don’t be so shocked

Apr 8, 2018

The press has been in a lather of late over reports that the Department of Homeland Security had discovered evidence that cellphone tracking tools were being used by “unauthorized” parties in and around Washington. Formally known as International Mobile Subscriber Identity catchers, and often called stingrays, these devices fool your phone’s baseband into believing it is in contact with a cell tower. IMSI catchers can use your phone’s signal to track your movements and contacts. In some cases th
[Martin Schram] How Trump, down to last option, got tough on Putin

Apr 8, 2018

Finally, and most unexpectedly, President Donald J. Trump climaxed yet another wacky, whipsawing week by doing the one thing even his handwringing, privately-panicky fellow Republicans never really believed he’d ever do.　He did precisely what he’d been insisting he was doing all along.　He just got tough with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Very tough -- financially and personally (at least by extension, since Putin, often called the world’s richest man, is believed to have links to many that t