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     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


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