About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

1 1 (July 21, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/goveijx0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service
inkurrning the Iegislative debate since 1914
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 to promote its interests
in East Asia and around the globe, including through South
Korean contributions of troops to U.S.-led military
operations. 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),
implemented in 2012. In 2021, South Korea was the United
States' seventh-largest trading partner (goods and services
trade combined), and the United States was South Korea's
second-largest trading partner, behind China.
In March 2022, South Koreans narrowly elected former
chief prosecutor Yoon Suk-yeol as their next president.
Yoon, who represents the conservative People Power Party
(PPP), succeeded president Moon Jae-in from the
progressive Minjoo (Democratic) Party. Yoon says he
wants to transform South Korea into a global pivotal state
by raising its profile beyond the Korean Peninsula, by
playing a larger role in regional groupings, and by
becoming a more active partner in the United States' Indo-
Pacific strategy. Ten days after Yoon's May 2022
inauguration, President Biden visited South Korea. In
addition to discussing ways to cooperate on North Korea
policy, Biden and Yoon broadened the aperture of bilateral
cooperation around the globe, announcing steps to deepen
cooperation on pandemic prevention, space, and climate
change. They also took steps to integrate South Korean
companies more fully into U.S. efforts to promote
technological development and supply chain resiliency.
South Korea became one of 14 inaugural negotiating
partners in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework
for Prosperity (IPEF) initiative, a proposed new trade and
economic arrangement.
North Korea Policy Coordination
North Korea is the dominant strategic concern in the U.S.-
South Korea relationship. Following the collapse of former
President Trump's diplomatic efforts with North Korean
leader Kim Jong-un in 2019, Pyongyang largely has
ignored U.S. and South Korean outreach, including
humanitarian aid offers, and has severed all overt inter-
Korean communication channels for extended periods.
Since the start of 2022, North Korea has conducted over 20
missile tests, including multiple tests of intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which are capable of delivering
nuclear warheads. These ICBM test-launches, North
Korea's first since November 2017, ended Kim's self-
declared ICBM test moratorium. Analysts expect North

Updated July 21, 2022

Korea in 2022 to conduct its 7th nuclear weapons test, and
first since September 2017. (In 2018, Kim had also
announced a moratorium on further nuclear tests.) North
Korea also conducts cyberattacks around the globe.
Whereas the previous Moon government had emphasized
diplomacy with North Korea, Yoon and Biden have
emphasized deterrence. They reactivated a high-level
consultation group on extended deterrence under the U.S.
nuclear umbrella and announced their intent to expand the
scope and scale of combined military exercises. Trump and
Moon had curtailed the exercises since June 2018. At the
May 2022 Biden-Yoon summit, the United States also
committed to deploy strategic assets such as stealth fighter
jets in a timely and coordinated manner as necessary. In
June, the allies staged combined military exercises that
included a U.S. aircraft carrier for the first time in over four
years.
The Biden Administration has stated it is pursuing a
calibrated, practical approach that is open to and will
explore diplomacy with North Korea while retaining U.S.
and international sanctions to achieve the eventual
complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This
appears to envision incrementally offering partial sanctions
relief in exchange for partial steps toward denuclearization.

U.S.-South Korea Security Issues
The Biden Administration has worked to repair the alliance.
It had been strained during the Trump years, prompting
Congress to impose conditions (via the National Defense
Authorization Act) on Trump's power to withdraw U.S.
troops from South Korea. In February 2021, the Biden
Administration concluded a cost-sharing negotiation with
South Korea that boosted South Korea's contribution to
alliance costs by 13.9%. The ROK traditionally has paid for
about 50% (over $800 million annually) of the total non-

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most