BUSAN: Later this month, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung will maintain his first summit with US President Donald Trump. As a mid-sized US ally depending on US safety ensures and market entry, the summit is essential for South Korea. It is going to be intently watched for alerts about the way forward for the alliance.
Not like earlier US presidents, who uniformly supported the US-South Korea alliance, Mr Trump has a extra unpredictable method to US alliances.
Throughout his first time period, he criticised the price of stationing American troops overseas and pushed allies to shoulder extra of the burden. At occasions, he appeared to forged doubt on whether or not the US would honour its safety commitments.
Nonetheless, South Korea accommodated Mr Trump, with then-president Moon Jae-in going to nice lengths to maintain diplomacy on monitor, even publicly stating that Mr Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his historic summit in Singapore with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un in 2018.
However a lot has modified since then, and Mr Lee’s go to to Washington will replicate that.
Solely into his second month in workplace, Mr Lee is navigating a much more advanced geopolitical surroundings, together with a deepening US-China rivalry, a extra provocative North Korea and shifting regional alliances. On the identical time, he faces the duty of consolidating public assist early in his time period.
Mr Trump, in the meantime, is in his second time period as president with fewer standard guardrails than earlier than. He’s now not surrounded by the intense diplomatic professionals of his first time period.
Compounding issues, Mr Lee has no flashy diplomatic occasion to supply. Not like in 2018, North Korea has expressed no real interest in assembly both Mr Lee or Mr Trump.
