SEOUL — The primary summit between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and President Trump was an image of straightforward chumminess.
On Monday, the 2 leaders bonded over the truth that they each have survived assassination makes an attempt, and so they talked golf. When Trump admired the handcrafted wood fountain pen Lee used to signal the White Home visitor e book, saying “it’s a nice pen, you want to take it with you?” Lee provided it as an impromptu reward. At a Q&A in entrance of reporters, Lee thanked Trump for bringing peace to the Korean peninsula by means of his earlier summits with North Korean chief Kim Jong Un and urged him to satisfy with Kim once more.
“If you become the peacemaker, then I will assist you by being a pacemaker,” Lee informed Trump, drawing a chuckle.
These scenes, together with the two-hour closed door assembly between the 2 leaders that adopted, appeared to place to relaxation fears that Lee — a former governor and legislator with little prior expertise on the worldwide stage — is perhaps topic to a “Zelensky moment”: cornered and berated by a counterpart who has lengthy complained that Seoul takes Washington with no consideration.
Karoline Leavitt, White Home press secretary, holds a commerce letter despatched by the White Home to South Korea throughout a information convention. On July 30, the U.S. struck a commerce take care of South Korea, however particulars have been scant.
(Bloomberg / Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures)
It was an end result for which South Korea painstakingly ready.
As a presidential candidate earlier this yr, Lee had vowed he would carry house a diplomatic win in any respect prices, even when it meant he needed to “crawl between Trump’s legs.” To easy alongside commerce negotiations with the U.S. in late July, South Korean officers introduced with them purple caps emblazoned with the slogan: “MAKE AMERICA SHIPBUILDING GREAT AGAIN.” And forward of Monday’s summit, Lee in contrast notes with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, whom he met final week, and brushed up on his project by studying “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
These early efforts thus far have seemingly paid off. Key South Korean proposals, comparable to a $150-billion plan to assist revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding business, have been obtained favorably, serving to safe the commerce take care of Washington final month, in line with South Korean officers.
“We’re going to be buying ships from South Korea,” Trump mentioned on Monday. “But we’re also going to have them make ships here with our people.”
However regardless of what’s broadly seen as a constructive first step for Lee — establishing face-to-face chemistry with a determine identified for each unpredictable swings and a deeply private fashion of diplomacy — analysts say it’s too early to name it a win. A number of unresolved points nonetheless loom giant, and these could but be snarled within the particulars as working-level negotiations play out.
“I actually thought they could get along surprisingly well because both Lee and Trump aren’t ideologically motivated in their thinking and practice of foreign policy,” mentioned James Park, an East Asia professional on the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based suppose tank.
“But it remains to be seen how their relationship unfolds. Should strong tensions emerge on trade and security issues that both sides find it difficult to compromise on in the future, the relationship between Lee and Trump will be tested. There’s a case in point — how the friendship between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fractured in recent months over tariffs and India’s purchases of Russian weapons.“
Although Trump promised on Monday to honor last month’s trade agreement — which lowered the tariff rate on Seoul to 15% from 25% — details have been scant and the deal has yet to be formalized in writing. But both sides have touted it as a win, leaving room to reignite long-running disagreements over issues like U.S. rice and beef, which have been subject to import restrictions in South Korea.
As part of that deal, South Korea also pledged to invest $350 billion into key U.S. industries. But behind the scenes, officials from both countries reportedly continue to disagree how this fund will be structured or used, with U.S. officials seeking far more discretionary power than the South Korean side is willing to give.
U.S. Army soldiers attend a transfer of authority ceremony in South Korea. In the past, President Trump has said that South Korea should pay $10 billion a year to help keep the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country.
(SOPA Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The summit hasn’t fully quelled South Korean concerns over defense and military cooperation either.
In the past, Trump has said that South Korea should pay $10 billion a year to help keep the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country. That is around nine times what Seoul currently pays under an existing agreement between the two countries.
While South Korean officials said that the defense cost-sharing issue was not discussed during Monday’s summit, Park says that the issue may resurface down the line.
“The alliance cost-sharing issue has been a consistent interest of Trump’s over the years,” he mentioned.
Trump’s grievances over the price of stationing the U.S. army in South Korea has fueled issues that the U.S. will pull out troops from its bases right here to counter China, making the nation extra weak to North Korea’s army threats.
The state of affairs has gained plausibility in current months, following experiences earlier this yr that U.S. protection officers have been reviewing a plan to relocate 1000’s of U.S. army personnel stationed in South Korea to different places within the Indo-Pacific, comparable to Guam.
Whereas any discount of troop dimension has lengthy been a political anathema in South Korea, Lee Ho-ryung, a senior analysis fellow on the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Protection Analyses (KIDA), says that this can be much less of a sticking level for President Lee than historical past would possibly counsel, citing a speech the South Korean chief delivered shortly after the summit wherein he pledged to extend Seoul’s personal protection spending.
“The content of that speech and Q&A suggest that the two sides have somewhat aligned on these issues,” she mentioned. “But it will still need to be further discussed at the working level.”
When requested by a reporter on Monday whether or not he was contemplating decreasing the variety of U.S. troops in South Korea, Trump deflected by saying “I don’t want to say that now because we’ve been friends.”
However then he pivoted to a different suggestion that raised eyebrows in South Korea.
“Maybe one of the things I’d like to do is ask them to give us ownership of the land where we have the big fort,” he mentioned. “I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease.”
Beneath an current association often known as the Standing of Forces Settlement (SOFA), South Korea at the moment grants the U.S. army rent-free use of the land the place its bases are situated. Talking to legislators on Tuesday, South Korean Protection Minister Ahn Gyu-back summarily dismissed the suggestion, hinting that it might have been a negotiating tactic.
“It is impossible in the real world,” he mentioned. “But from the perspective of President Trump, I think it may have been a comment intended to allow him to make a different strategic demand.”
Within the meantime, a second spherical of negotiations with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un can be a win for each leaders.
However many consultants consider that the window for getting North Korea to denuclearize underneath the beforehand mentioned phrases — partial sanctions reduction — has closed for the reason that failed summits between Trump and Kim in 2018 and 2019. North Korea not too long ago dismissed any makes an attempt to persuade it to surrender its nuclear weapons as a “mockery of the other party.”
Private chemistry between President Lee and Trump can go solely thus far this time, says Lee of the Korea Institute for Protection Analyses.
“North Korea is effectively evading any economic sanctions through Russia and China,” she mentioned. “Sanctions relief is no longer the enticing carrot that it once was.”
