Seoul should make all diplomatic efforts to reduce Trump uncertainties

Seoul should make all diplomatic efforts to reduce Trump uncertainties. November. 11, 2016 07:06. .

Seoul should make all diplomatic efforts to reduce Trump uncertainties U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said in a telephone conversation with South Korean President Park Geun-hye that the United States will be “steadfast and strong” in defending against North. “We are with you all the way and will not waver,” he was quoted as saying by the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. In a response to Park’s call for a stronger Seoul-Washington alliance, Trump said, “We are going to be with you 100 percent.” It is relieving that Trump stressed that the bilateral alliance is “steadfast and strong” in his own voice just one day after his election victory.

Throughout his campaign, he claimed that South Korea was free-riding on the U.S. security guarantee, calling on Seoul to cover the full cost of keeping the U.S. troops in South Korea. The remarks showed his businessman-like way of thinking that the beneficiary of the U.S. security service should pay for it. It is possible that the president-elect could ask South Korea to take back the wartime operational control over its own military if Seoul is reluctant to increase its defense cost sharing. The South Korean government should prepare for all possibilities.

It is also very likely that there will be a cacophony in the Seoul-Washington joint efforts against North Korea’s nuclear program. Although Trump called for China’s role in resolving the issue and expressed his intention to have a direct dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the U.S. president-elect has never disclosed his North Korea policy in full. Taking advantage of the U.S. transition, Pyongyang on Thursday urged Washington to officially recognize it as a nuclear power. Trump had made remarks against the missile defense system in reference to the planned deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea. Washington’s non-interventionist approach to the issues involving the East China Sea and South China Sea could result in strengthening China’s influence in the region against the interest of South Korea.

At a policy forum in Seoul on Thursday, experts expressed concerns over the unpredictability of the security on the Korean Peninsula that the Trump administration would bring about. The South Korean government should strive to expand its contacts with officials involved in the Trump transition team and make omnidirectional diplomatic efforts to ensure the U.S. Republican Party, which seeks a complete scrapping of the North Korean nuclear program, to lead Trump’s North Korea policy, and keep the incoming U.S. administration’s Korean Peninsula policy stay on the existing track.