A Korean adoptee's 30-year search for answers

Washington Post

09-04-2025

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In the 1950s, to recover from economic devastation brought by back-to-back wars, South Korea devised what would become a lucrative adoption industry. Two weeks ago, an investigation by the South Korean government revealed that the profitable scheme was built on coercion and deception of vulnerable parents.
In a heart-wrenching essay, Laura Manley, born in South Korea and adopted 30 years ago by an American couple, shares the saga of her life — and her birth mother's. What began as a love story between her birth parents turned tragic when her father suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm that effectively left her mother to raise a newborn alone — 'nearly impossible in a society deeply rooted in patriarchal and traditionalist values,' Manley writes.
Manley's mother was persuaded to leave the child in the care of an orphanage for what she believed would be a few months; those months turned into sorrowful years when the child was sent to the United States for adoption without her birth mother's knowledge. Manley's narration of their long-awaited reunion is enough to leave you misty-eyed, as she presses South Korea to deliver the justice 'that so many families, including mine, have waited too long to see.'
From Democratic pollster Evan Roth Smith's analysis of Musk's influence on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Despite Musk spending an estimated $20 million to support the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel, Smith's polling reveals that the billionaire had negligible positive persuasive power: Only 4 percent of voters reported that Musk's endorsement made them more likely to support Schimel. In fact, Musk's aggressive campaign had the opposite effect: Voters were more likely to support the liberal candidate because of Musk's opposition to her. As Democrats strategize how to reclaim power, Smith suggests they capitalize on Musk's unpopularity — the bad impression he leaves on voters could be their good luck charm.
Eduardo Porter knows what it's like to grow up in the 'Third World.' So he also knows what it's like to revere America's status as 'the most affluent and powerful nation on Earth.' Eduardo finds Trump's whining that America has been at the 'mercy of other countries with big manufacturing industries' — his rationale for levying hefty tariffs on all those swindlers — confusing and ahistorical. 'It was, after all, the U.S. Treasury that pushed the core ideas that shaped the era of globalization,' Eduardo writes. The norms of liberal international trade and macroeconomic discipline? Straight from Washington's financial manifesto.
If Trump is eager to see what happens when ill-prepared countries overbet on domestic production, Eduardo advises that he study up on 1970s Latin America — and heed the debt, corruption and stymied innovation engendered by overly ambitious protectionism.
It's a goodbye. It's a haiku. It's … The Bye-Ku.
No substitute for
The U.S.-made world order
Sold in the trade war
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