About this episode
Left-leaning challenger Lee Jae-myung won South Korea's presidential election, ending three years of conservative rule in a race that was largely a verdict on his ousted predecessor's botched attempt to revive martial law in the longstanding US ally. Lee, a former labor activist, won Tuesday's election with 49.4% of the vote, a comfortable win over Kim Moon-soo of the incumbent People Power Party, according to the final count released by the National Election Commission. The agency, which said voter turnout reached a 28-year high of 79.4%, officially declared Lee as the nation's 21st president at 6:21 a.m. local time on Wednesday. We get more on what's ahead from Rachel Minyoung Lee, Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center's Korea Program. She speaks with Bloomberg's Shery Ahn and Paul Allen. Plus - Asian stocks rose for the first time in four days after data showed the US labor market is holding up despite concerns President Donald Trump's tariff war is pushing the world economy into a downturn. Just days ahead of the US payrolls report, an unexpected increase in job openings buoyed market sentiment, sending the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 higher. That helped offset investor angst after the Paris-based OECD said Trump's combative trade policies have tipped the world economy into a downturn, with the US among the hardest hit. We get some market perspective from Brad Bernstein, Managing Director at UBS Private Wealth Management. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.