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1 1 (August 1, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbaqc0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service ' Informn qhe legis'lateve debate sine 1914 Updated August 1, 2019 South Korea: Background and U.S. Relations Overview South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea, or ROK) is one of the United States' most important strategic and economic partners in Asia. The U.S.-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, signed in 1953 at the end of the Korean War, commits the United States to help South Korea defend itself, particularly from North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK). Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are based in the ROK, which is included under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. The U.S.-ROK economic relationship is bolstered by the U.S.- South Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). South Korea is the United States' seventh-largest trading partner, and the United States is South Korea's second-largest trading partner, behind China. After several years of close coordination, notably on North Korea, collaboration between the United States and South Korea has become more inconsistent and unpredictable under the administrations of Donald Trump and Moon Jae- in. Moon, a progressive, was elected in May 2017 after a decade of conservative rule in South Korea. (See Figure 1 for more on ROK politics.) Moon and Trump have aligned aspects of their approaches toward North Korea, with both pursuing a rapprochement with Pyongyang. Moon brokered a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump in June 2018. Kim and Trump met again in Hanoi in February 2019, though the negotiations collapsed, dealing a major blow to Moon's agenda of developing closer ties to the North. Despite a third Trump-Kim meeting for one hour in June 2019 in Panmunjom, inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas, U.S.-DPRK and ROK- DPRK diplomacy have stalled since the Hanoi summit. Differences remain between Washington and Seoul on policy issues, such as whether and under what conditions to offer concessions to North Korea and how to share costs associated with the U.S.-ROK alliance. Seoul generally favors more and earlier economic concessions than does Washington. The Trump Administration also reportedly has asked South Korea to help contribute to a maritime security force to protect commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, a move Seoul appears reluctant to make. In the trade arena, although South Korea has been excluded for now from U.S. Section 232 import restrictions on autos, U.S. import restrictions remain in place on several other South Korean exports. The Trump Administration's tendency to change policy positions unexpectedly adds another element of uncertainty. North Korea Policy Coordination North Korea is the dominant strategic concern within the U.S.-South Korea relationship. In 2016 and 2017, North Korea conducted scores of missile tests and three nuclear weapons tests, demonstrating major strides in its ability to strike the continental United States with a nuclear-armed ballistic missile. The Obama and Trump Administrations responded by expanding multilateral and unilateral sanctions against North Korea. Moon supported Trump's maximum pressure campaign, but also retained his longstanding preference for engaging Pyongyang. During 2017, Trump Administration officials, including the President, repeatedly raised the possibility of launching a preventive military strike. This possibility, which would risk triggering a North Korean retaliation against South Korea, appears to have convinced Moon that the United States, rather than North Korea, represented the greatest immediate threat to South Korean security. The combination of the fear of war, an ideological preference for engagement, and a belief that South Korea should shape the future of the Korean Peninsula drove Moon to improve inter-Korean relations and broker U.S.-DPRK talks. Kim Jong-un enabled the breakthrough in early 2018 by dropping his belligerent posture and pushing to end North Korea's diplomatic isolation. Since then, Kim has met with U.S., ROK, Chinese, and Russian presidents. He has pledged to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, not conduct nuclear or long-range missile tests while dialogue continues, and allow the permanent dismantlement of the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center as the United States takes corresponding measures. However, disagreements about the definition of denuclearization, and the timing and sequencing of concessions, have prevented the United States and DPRK from agreeing on a way forward. Meanwhile, despite its partial testing moratorium and pledges to denuclearize, North Korea reportedly has rttps: crsreports.cong tess go

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