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handle is hein.crs/govebrq0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 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). The alliance also helps the United States promote its interests in East Asia and around the globe, including by deploying ROK troops to U.S.-led military conflicts in the Middle East. Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are based in the ROK. The 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. Policy cooperation between the United States and South Korea was inconsistent under the administrations of Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in. President Moon, a progressive, was elected in May 2017 after a decade of conservative rule. President Biden has called for reinvigorating the alliance, suggesting he would abandon President Trump's repeated use of punitive tariffs against allies like Seoul and his demand for a five-fold increase in South Korea's payments for the costs of hosting U.S. troops. Unlike Trump, Biden has not signaled an interest in demanding new concessions in the KORUS FTA or withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea. Bilateral difficulties could surface, however, over North Korea policy. Moon's government favors easing sanctions against Pyongyang, a stance that could create tensions with Washington. South Korea's COVI D-19 Response Despite being one of the countries first hit by COVID-19 in early 2020, South Korea has largely contained the virus without resorting to lockdowns. As of early February 2021, the country reported around 79,000 cumulative cases and around 1,400 deaths. The government's success stems in part from lessons learned after a 2015 deadly outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) exposed flaws in the country's public health system. In response, South Korea passed legislation granting the government greater powers to monitor and track individual patients and to allow private companies to produce health tests rapidly. These changes have helped South Korea manage the COVID-19 pandemic with aggressive testing, contact tracing, and public communication. The government has emphasized transparency, disseminating information about the virus' spread, including about possible infections at the neighborhood level. At times, South Korea has prohibited large gatherings, including anti-government rallies, prompting criticism. Moon also has been criticized for Updated February 2, 2021 being slow to procure COVID vaccines, which are expected to be available in February. North Korea Policy Coordination North Korea is the dominant strategic concern in the U.S.- South Korea relationship. Moon has championed U.S.- North Korea talks, which he views as critical to preventing military conflict and to realizing his goal of establishing a durable peace on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea's steady advances in its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs were not stopped by two years of personal diplomacy between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. U.S.-DPRK talks halted in early 2019 due to differences over the scope and sequencing of concessions, specifically North Korean denuclearization measures in exchange for relief from international and U.S. sanctions. Kim also has linked progress on denuclearization talks to the cessation of U.S. joint military exercises with and shipments of advanced military equipment to South Korea. In the near term, analysts worry Kim will abandon his three-year-old unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range ballistic missile tests. North Korea has continued to test short- and medium-range missiles and to conduct cyberattacks around the globe. U.N. and U.S. sanctions remain in place, officially barring nearly all of North Korea's typical exports and many of its imports. The sanctions severely limit cooperation activities that the Moon government favors to ease tension on the Peninsula. Inter-Korean relations under Moon have closely tracked U.S.-North Korea relations, improving markedly in 2018- when three Moon-Kim summits were held-before collapsing in 2019. Since early 2019, Pyongyang largely https://C rsrepor

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