Former US President Donald Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris. (AP/Yonhap)
By Cho Ki-weon, international news editor
The US presidential election is only a week away. Depending on whether former President Donald Trump or current Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, the outcome looks to have a massive impact on the geopolitics of the Korean Peninsula.
If Trump is elected, he is sure to demand that South Korea increase its financial contribution to stationing US troops, as well as sending Seoul various other bills to pay. During an interview with the Economic Club of Chicago on Oct. 15, Trump took aim at the recently signed Special Measures Agreement between Seoul and Washington.
“If I were there now, they’d be paying us US$10 billion a year, and you know what? They’d be happy to do it,” Trump said, referring to South Korea as “a money machine.”
In a town hall meeting broadcast on Oct. 16 by Fox News, Trump called South Korea a “rich country.”
“We have to start [making South Korea pay],” Trump added. “We cannot be taken advantage of any longer in trade, in the military.”
As Trump nears the end of the campaign trail, he is concentrating more remarks on South Korea, claiming that if he is elected he will increase South Korea’s financial contributions.
Some people expect that if Trump returns to the White House, it will to bring about a shift in the dialogue with North Korea. In January 2018, when North Korea was repeatedly conducting rocket launches and when Trump was beginning his term, the former president called North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “rocket man.”
Responding to threats from Kim about having a “nuclear button” on his desk at all times, Trump tweeted that his button was “much bigger & more powerful” than Kim’s, adding: “and my Button works!”
Five months later, Trump and Kim held the first US-North Korea summit in history on June 12, 2018, in Singapore. Many people hoped that the summit would produce results.
Sadly, these hopes were dashed when the second summit in Hanoi in February 2019 ended with no deal. Yet there is the hope that a second Trump administration could at least bring about a change in inter-Korean relations that Democratic administrations have failed to achieve Throughout his campaign, Trump has claimed that he and Kim “get along” very well. Yet even if Trump manages to bring Kim to the negotiation table once again, the situation is different from the eight-month period from June 2018 to February 2019. The situation has changed drastically since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump’s tendency toward unpredictability is another potential threat, and some have voiced concerns that he may seek an agreement with North Korea on terms that worsen the security situation for the South.
If Harris defeats Trump, that appears likely to eliminate a number of the threats in terms of areas such as demands for outrageous hikes in South Korea’s share of US Forces Korea costs. Her more common-sense, predictable approach in comparison with Trump would seem to promise more stability.
But Harris’ election would also appear to rule out prospects for dramatic changes in the intensifying confrontation between North Korea and the US and between South and North Korea.
In 2022, former US Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow commented on the striking similarities between the Joseph Biden administration’s North Korea policies and the “strategic patience” approach adopted by the Barack Obama administration, where Biden served as vice president.
As a policy approach, strategic patience involved continued pressure through sanctions and other means while waiting for North Korea to give up its nuclear program. Critics argued that it was neither strategic nor patient, but amounted in practical terms to not doing anything at all.
While the Biden administration has denied carrying on the strategic patience approach, critics have consistently argued that his current approach is no different.
Harris appears likely to carry on a similar approach to the Biden administration, where she has been serving as vice president. In her criticisms of Trump during the election campaign, she stressed that she would not “cozy up to” figures such as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the US and Japan that has gathered momentum during the Biden presidency appears very likely to continue, and the closeness between North Korea and Russia may deepen as well.
Ultimately, neither scenario for the election outcome inspires great optimism for South Korea.
Meanwhile, the situation on the Korean Peninsula is dire enough that the South Korean government is announcing predictions that the North will dispatch over 10,000 troops to fight on behalf of Russia in its war with Ukraine. Seoul, for its part, has alluded to providing Ukraine with offensive weapons. If that comes to pass, we could find ourselves in a situation of de facto confrontation between South and North on the Ukrainian battlefield.
Under these circumstances, we will be obliged to take great pains in dealing with the thorny issues affecting the peninsula, no matter who is elected president in the US. In the final analysis, the key question is what South Korea can do to persuade the US toward realizing positive changes.
The US is not a direct party to Korean Peninsula issues. South Korea is, and we do not have much time.
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