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Since the revelation that the Clintons have hauled in $25 million in speaking fees since the start of 2014, the question is being raised everywhere. Frankly, Marc Noland and I are trying to figure out how to cash in on our modest North Korea franchise; we don’t get many takers. But a few other stories suggest that the issue extends beyond the Clinton headliners, so we thought we would highlight two stories with Korea links.
First up, Jeb Bush is using the strategy that is likely to dominate the presidential campaign season: “I was just a bush leaguer compared to them—and paid a higher marginal tax rate to boot!” Well, not exactly a bush leaguer. Bush has made $27 million since leaving office in 2007, $10 million of that in speaking fees. Credit where credit is due: we know this because Bush has been particularly open with his tax returns (Politico coverage here). In a story at the Financial Times (behind their paywall here), however, we see once again why these relationships are fraught. It is not outright impropriety or even the slippery concept of “an appearance of impropriety” that is galling. It is the cozy world of the political-business elite and the unseemly businesses that the lecture circuit can tap.
One of Bush’s most lucrative speaking gigs has been with the Korean Poongsan Group; Bush has spoken to them no less than 10 times. The company supplies blank coins to the US mint, its CEO was a generous funder of the George H.W. Bush library and sits on its board. The FT reports that the company secured contracts with the US government during the Bush administration while Jeb was giving lectures to them, which is totally irrelevant innuendo.
But what is not innuendo is that Poongsan is a manufacturer of cluster munitions, which an international movement has been trying to ban. The effort is not limited to the NGO world but culminated in an important convention and has gained support from major UK financial entities as well. The 2008 Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions has some significant missing signatories, however, including not only the US and China but South Korea too; the reason is the DMZ. The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor provides details on this niche industry in Korea, Poongsan’s operations and some of its customers including a joint venture with Pakistan which in turn exports to unstipulated customers.
Make your own judgment. But at the “doing good in the world” end of the spectrum, we have the story broken by NKNews about North Korean defector Yeonmi Park’s speaking fees. Again, in contrast to what most of us would want for ourselves, less is better. Park’s agent was anxious to clarify that a report that she earns an average of $41,000 per speaking engagement is “completely incorrect.” Those fees will only kick in with the publication of her forthcoming book In Order to Live, due out this fall. In the interim she takes in only $12,500 for campus tours to speak before student groups and $17,500 for corporates. For the record, I run a small Korea program at the University of California San Diego, and we would be hard pressed to scrape together $12,500.
But as these stories show, some of this coverage may be little more than sour grapes; as I said, Marc and I are open to offers. Jeb Bush has been transparent on what he does, and he and Yeonmi Park arguably deserve their success. With Bush and Clinton, it is likely you will be able to make your judgment on the speaking fee issue at the ballot box in 2016.
