South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will meet President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, a first encounter likely to test the balance between alliance solidarity and growing disputes over defense obligations and China policy.
During his campaign this year, Lee declared that he would “crawl between President Trump’s legs” if necessary to protect South Korea’s national interests, while cautioning, “I am not a pushover, either.” Now in office, he arrives in Washington facing U.S. pressure for Seoul to assume more responsibility for its security and to support Washington’s strategic posture toward Beijing.
The two leaders share uncommon parallels, The New York Times noted. Both survived assassination attempts before taking office. Both have expressed interest in direct engagement with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un. But their priorities diverge sharply on the seven-decade-old alliance: Trump’s administration has tied U.S. forces in Korea to broader regional operations against China, while Lee’s government fears entanglement in a Taiwan conflict could leave Seoul more vulnerable to Pyongyang.
For decades, roughly 28,500 U.S. troops have been stationed in South Korea under the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1953. Washington’s recent emphasis on “strategic flexibility” — letting those forces operate in contingencies beyond the Korean Peninsula — has unsettled Seoul. “Strategic flexibility should not undermine South Korea’s security,” National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said Friday, noting that the allies reached tentative consensus on that principle.
Still, officials remain cautious. “If the president somehow feels that he needs to elicit some more public statements from Lee Jae Myung as a partner in countering the Chinese economic and military threat, that might put President Lee in a position that would take him beyond his current talking points,” Sydney Seiler, a Korea specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, warned in a panel discussion last week.
The concerns are not new. In 2006, a joint U.S.-South Korea statement committed Washington to respect Seoul’s refusal to participate in “a regional conflict in Northeast Asia against the will of the Korean people,” while South Korea acknowledged the “necessity for strategic flexibility.” That understanding came before Washington formally identified China as its top security competitor and prioritized defense of Taiwan.
Some analysts now suggest reducing the U.S. footprint in South Korea if bases there cannot be freely used in a Taiwan crisis.
“The United States can simply relocate key components of its forces in South Korea to another region,” argued Chun Yung-woo, a former senior presidential adviser on diplomacy and national security.
Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, countered earlier this month that involvement in a Taiwan conflict was not a foregone conclusion, but emphasized that Seoul must “be stronger” against North Korea so U.S. forces can focus elsewhere.
Lee has sought to broaden his diplomatic options. En route to Washington, he stopped in Tokyo to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The two leaders pledged to improve bilateral ties and coordinate more closely with Washington on security challenges posed by China and North Korea, as well as on economic issues, including Trump’s tariffs and defense spending demands.
Those demands are intensifying. Trump has linked tariff reductions on South Korean exports such as Samsung electronics and Hyundai vehicles — lowering rates to 15% — to Seoul’s agreement on a $350 billion investment package. He has also called for South Korea to increase its annual contribution to the upkeep of U.S. forces to $10 billion, more than nine times the current level.
These pressures are fueling debate inside South Korea about whether the nation should seek greater autonomy. Public surveys in recent years show a majority of citizens favoring the development of an indigenous nuclear arsenal over indefinite reliance on American protection.
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