韓·美 경제협력체제의 오늘과 내일

Abstract

From the viewpoint of the US government, Korea was one of the least developed countries in the 1950s and could not survive without aid from the US. After 60 years of fast economic growth, Korea is now an advanced country that can compete equally with the United States in many industries. Korea’s dependence on bilateral trade with the US has been dramatically reduced, although the overall importance of that trade for Korea’s economy is still large. At the same time, the Trump administration is pushing a “my country first” policy, as are many other countries. These factors suggest that the Korea-US economic relationship might be different in the 21st century. However, economic gains from free trade and cooperation between the two countries are simply too big to ignore, which means that the Trump government’s policy will focus more on politically symbolic gestures rather than on real economic benefits or costs. Therefore, the Korea-US economic relationship will remain more or less the same. Still, both governments must maintain efforts to sustain the economic benefits of bilateral trade, while dealing with small political misalignments with wise diplomacy.