WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — A prominent U.S. expert has expressed his hope for Acting President Han Duck-soo to be a “source of stability” amid South Korea’s political turmoil, but warned that absent a fully elected president, Seoul could face a disadvantage in engaging with the administration of incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.
Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also said that after returning to office next month, Trump might try to reduce U.S. troops in South Korea and roll out tariffs against the Asian ally, as the scholar underlined the need for Seoul to brace for Trump’s “paradigm shifting ways” of statecraft.
Cha made the remarks during a virtual interview with Yonhap News Agency on Monday as South Korea has been thrust into a tumultuous period due to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s botched martial law attempt that led to his impeachment on Saturday.
“If there was anybody who could play an important role as acting president in this difficult time, (I) couldn’t think of a better case than Han Duck-soo,” Cha said.
“Han Duck-soo was also President Yoon’s first appointment as prime minister, and he stayed in that position despite cabinet turnover … which I think shows he is sort of a source of stability in the Yoon government and hopefully a source of stability in the current political turmoil,” he added.
Prime Minister Han has taken over as acting president since the National Assembly voted to impeach Yoon over the weekend, suspending him from presidential duties until the Constitutional Court decides whether to reinstate or unseat him from office.
Despite Han being seen as a safe pair of hands, Cha expressed concerns that absent a fully elected leader in Seoul, South Korea could be put at a disadvantage when it has to secure its interests in its policy engagement with the second Trump administration.
“Once they come into office, (the Trump administration) will be moving very quickly on everything from tariffs to diplomacy to Ukraine, possibly to North Korea, to China,” he said.
“And for there not to be a fully elected new administration in South Korea on the back end of the current crisis, I think (it) is quite disadvantageous to South Korea.”
A leader-to-leader relationship is particularly crucial for Trump whose policy approach is “top down” rather than “bottom up,” Cha pointed out.
“It’s critically important that the leader of the country be able to meet with Trump and for them to get to know each other. Korea’s current domestic political situation does not allow for that, and it could be quite some time before this is resolved,” he said.
“I understand domestically the stakes that are there, that may cause this thing to be dragged out, but in terms of foreign policy and the alliance, I think the costs are quite high.”
The scholar expected that when Trump returns to the Oval Office, his desire to try to pare down the number of some 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea would be an issue for the Seoul-Washington alliance to confront.
“He will want to try to reduce troops on the Korean Peninsula, and this again amplifies the problem that we currently have with the political crisis,” he said.
Cha added, “It is very difficult to have those sorts of really paradigm shifting discussions and conversations when you don’t have a government sort of firmly in place, when Korea is in the middle of this very serious, fundamental political crisis.”
South Korea would not be able to avoid tariffs from the incoming U.S. government as well given the Asian ally’s trade surplus with the U.S., the scholar said.
“Korea has a $51 billion trade surplus with the U.S. So I think Trump will reflexively just want to tariff that. No matter what,” Cha said.
Touching on diplomacy toward Pyongyang, Cha raised the prospects of Trump resuming dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un given his penchant for “TV spectacles.” But he noted that “nobody really knows how much would be accomplished” when Trump engages in talks with Kim.
“My personal opinion is I think that Trump will reengage with Kim Jong-un just because he considers Kim Jong-un his friend,” he said. “I think Trump likes the big headline spectacle, diplomatic events, and so I think the idea of meeting with Kim Jong-un is just too enticing for Trump.”
Cha, in addition, raised the possibility that Trump might want a peace treaty with North Korea given that he has shown his desire to end all wars that the U.S. is somehow involved in.
With regard to the treaty, the question remains over how much Pyongyang would be willing to concede for it.
“I think again what is different from 2018, 2019 … is that North Korea has this very substantive relationship with Russia in which they may not be willing to pay that higher price for a peace treaty, and not willing to accept denuclearization or any of those sorts of things,” he said. “I think it’s a different problem set for Trump.”
But when it comes to Trump’s policy disposition, “anything is possible,” Cha noted.
“For example, I think the Biden administration’s natural reaction to a situation like this is to consolidate the trilateral relationship between the U.S., Japan and South Korea,” he said.
“(Trump) may think the answer to this is a trilateral between the U.S., Russia and North Korea. There are completely paradigm shifting ways that we need to think about this because it’s Donald Trump.”
A different negotiating environment would be another challenge for any nuclear parley with Pyongyang. Unlike in 2018, Pyongyang now has its strong backer, Russia, which it now relies on for food, fuel, security guarantees and possibly military technology, Cha said.
“They are getting all that from Russia today,” he said. “So Kim Jong-un’s need for China and his need for the United State (is) probably less, much less than they were in 2018.”
Should Trump resume engagement with the North, there would also be a worrisome caveat for Seoul: South Korea could be sidelined or bypassed if there is a lack of coordination between Seoul and Washington in the absence of inter-Korean dialogue.
“I think even when there were sitting presidents in place, there were always concerns that Trump would go over the heads of the allies. Even when things are normal, that’s a concern,” Cha said.
Potentially worse, South Korea’s role with engagement between the U.S. and the North might be “less visible” since Trump already has his own direct connection with Kim, although he initially needed Seoul’s aid in building ties with the North Korean leader, he said.
Commenting on key deterrence measures that the Yoon and Biden administrations have crafted, Cha anticipated policy continuity under Trump. Those measures include the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), the allies’ key nuclear deterrence body mentioned in the Washington Declaration that Yoon and Biden issued during their summit in April last year.
“I don’t see any reason why the Trump administration would stop the NCG and the Washington Declaration, but what I do worry about is that Trump famously does not like to pay for military exercising,” he said. “So what I worry about is that the meetings and the dialogue will continue, but it may not be supported by the exercises.”
He cautioned against Yoon’s foreign policy feats — namely improved relations with Japan and trilateral cooperation among the South, the U.S. and Japan — being “politicized.”
“My concern is that many of those things in the context of the domestic disputes in Korea will become politicized and will largely be seen as the views of an impeached president, and not viewed in the broader context of whether these things are good for Korea or good for the global order,” he said.
(Yonhap)