South Korean President Lee Jae-myung faced a pivotal moment yesterday, when he was slated to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington for their first summit, as the countries’ decades-old alliance strains to confront rapid geopolitical changes.
Much is riding on the meeting for Lee, who took office in June after a snap election called after his conservative predecessor — feted in Washington for his hard line on North Korea — was removed for attempting to impose martial law.
South Korea’s economy relies heavily on the US, with Washington underwriting its security with troops and nuclear deterrence. Lee hopes to chart a balanced path of cooperation with the US, while not antagonizing top trade partner China.
Photo: EPA
As he headed to the US, Lee sent a special delegation to Beijing, which delivered a message calling for normalized relations with China that have been strained in recent years.
South Korea has long come under targeted criticism from Trump, who has called it a “money machine” that takes advantage of US military protection.
Lee would seek to make a good impression, connect personally with Trump and, above all, avoid any unpleasant surprises, analysts said.
“For Lee, a no-news summit I think would be good,” said Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Under heavy pressure from Trump’s administration, South Korean negotiators last month secured a last-minute deal to avoid the harshest of new US tariffs, but they must still hammer out details of billions of dollars in promised investments in the US.
South Korean officials say they hope such working-level trade negotiations would largely be left for other meetings.
“There are many major topics in the security field,” Lee’s top policy aide, Kim Yong-beom, said last week.
“Our position is that trade was already finalized last time. We hope that specific implementation plans for trade won’t be included in the summit at all, or at least should be kept simple if discussed,” he added.
Several top officials, including the foreign minister, rushed to Washington over the weekend to try to iron out final details.
Lee, who arrived in Washington on Sunday, would highlight some of South Korea’s expected investments when he visits a shipyard in Philadelphia owned by the country’s Hanwha Group after the summit. Cooperation to help the ailing US shipbuilding sector is part of the broad tariff agreement reached between the countries.
Trump was expected to pressure Lee to commit to more spending on defense, including potentially billions of dollars more toward the upkeep of 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea.
Wi Sung-lac, Lee’s top security adviser, said South Korea was in talks with Washington over defense spending, taking as a reference NATO’s agreement on a big new defense spending target.
Wi added that the government was also looking into a plan for the purchase of US weapons.
While focusing on increasing military spending, Lee would likely seek to avoid conversations about a potential reduction of US troops or using them for a wider range of operations, or details on modernizing the alliance, said Kim Du-yeon, a Seoul-based adjunct senior fellow with the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Lee told reporters it would be difficult for Seoul to accept the demand by the US to adopt “flexibility” in operating the US military stationed in South Korea.
“They should leave those topics for working-level officials to hash out,” Kim said. “Ambition could backfire.”
Trump and Lee might also discuss efforts to persuade North Korea to freeze and eventually abandon its nuclear weapons program.
Both leaders support engaging Pyongyang, and Lee has called for a phased approach to denuclearization.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says South Korea and the US remain hostile to his country and he will never give up his nuclear arsenal.
Over the weekend Kim supervised test firing of new air defense systems.
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