South Korea-U.S. tariff strife threatens to affect security domain

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean officials are warning of potentially dire consequences as tensions resurface in Korea-U.S. relations on multiple fronts: trade, security and commerce.

Seoul’s slow-walk of a November investment pledge in the U.S. has angered President Trump, who is threatening a new tariff offensive. And distrust on the trade front is spilling into the security domain.

Security fractures may presage a wider strategic gulf opening between the two allies, post-Trump. As the U.S. confronts the expanding power of Beijing, pressure looks set to increase on Seoul to move more fully toward the U.S. side, rather than standing uneasily between the two.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung deployed his trade and foreign ministers to Washington after Mr. Trump late last month warned he might raise tariffs on key Korean exports from 15% to 25%.

They are promoting urgency.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, after meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, told local reporters Thursday, “The internal climate in the U.S. is not good regarding [South Korea’s] implementation of trade-related commitments.”

Bad vibes are extending beyond the economic sphere, warned National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac on Friday.

“Tariff negotiations in the economic sector and security negotiations are the two pillars supporting South Korea-U.S. agreements,” he told influential local media Chosun Ilbo. “One has already caused trouble, and the negative atmosphere is spreading to the other. Tariffs and security cannot be separated.”

Tariffs vs. delaying tactics

At the center of a dense geopolitical and geo-economic web, Mr. Lee faces multi-faceted challenges. The most pressing concerns U.S. trade and investment.

Under tariff threats, Mr. Lee agreed to trade and investment terms with Mr. Trump in November. However, Seoul’s National Assembly has delayed the passage of legislation on a centerpiece of that agreement: The Special Act on Investment in the United States.

The act would establish a fund to fulfill the $350 billion Mr. Lee pledged to invest in the U.S. during wide-ranging talks with Mr. Trump at the APEC Summit in South Korea in November.

Though the funds will be invested in tranches rather than in a lump sum, there are widespread public jitters about the amount: Korea’s total foreign exchange reserves amount to $425 billion.

Moreover, per local media commentaries, there are concerns within Mr. Lee’s party that rushing through the legislation could encourage Washington to apply further trade pressure.

The delay has not escaped Mr. Trump. On Jan. 26, expressing impatience with the delays, he brandished a now-familiar weapon on Truth Social: threatening to raise tariffs on key Korean exports from 15% to 25%.

That represents a serious threat to trade-reliant South Korea — particularly given its close competition with Japan in multiple sectors in U.S. markets.

The threat appears to have galvanized the National Assembly. On Feb. 4, the two major parties announced the establishment of a special committee tasked with drafting the bill by March 9.

The U.S. pressure, and Korea’s slow-motion reactions, were predictable, said one pundit.

“This [November] deal was not really a deal, it was an extortion: Trump acts like a mafia boss and what mafia bosses do is come back for another bite of the apple,” said Mason Richey, an international relations professor at Seoul’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. “It was also obvious that South Korea would delay, hedge and try to slow walk the implementation of the deal — they don’t want to pay up.”

He suggested that some South Korean officials and lawmakers could be holding out hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down Mr. Trump’s tariffs. The justices in November heard oral arguments in the case challenging Mr. Trump’s authority to impose broad tariffs and have not released a decision yet.

A ruling against the tariffs, Mr. Richey suggested, could lead to a renegotiation of the investment package. It also could explain Mr. Trump’s impatience to get Korea’s cash flowing to the U.S. as soon as possible.

Cracks in the security triangle

Beyond trade, the security domain is hardly free of friction.

While maintaining relations with a mercurial Washington is Mr. Lee’s top priority, he has repeatedly stated his ambitions to improve ties with Beijing.

In December, he struck up a chummy relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Korea. In January, he reinforced ties with Mr. Xi during a three-day state visit to China.

Senior U.S. security officials, meanwhile, have made clear that they want a reluctant Seoul to widen its strategic focus beyond North Korea to include China.

U.S. Forces Korea Commander-in-Chief General Xavier Brunson has repeatedly said, in essays and public addresses, how well located his command is to deter China and Russia.

Customarily, USFK commanders have focused on their primary mission — deterring North Korea — rather than the wider region.

Seoul has never committed to joining any future U.S.-led defense of Taiwan, and there is deep disquiet about U.S. Forces Korea undertaking non-Korean missions.

The U.S. pressure came into fresh focus last week when U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby visited Seoul and delivered an address at the Sejong Institute think tank.

In it, he praised Seoul’s defense spending, but also referred to China multiple times. North Korea did not merit a single mention.

Those omissions did not elude pundits.

“Colby should know what ’alliance’ means, but he is kind of disappointing,” said Yang Uk, a security analyst at Seoul’s Asan Institute. “In the case of Brunson, he is afraid he might be the last four-star at USFK, so is trying to show to the Trump administration that USFK is not just about Korea.”

Meanwhile, the surprise deal Mr. Lee won from Mr. Trump in November — to develop domestic nuclear submarines — has gone nowhere, adding to the current stresses.

It’s a regulatory minefield. The deal not only involves the transfer of related underwater technologies, but also grants increased uranium enrichment and spent nuclear fuel processing privileges to Seoul.

More broadly, the expanding power of China across all domains — military, economic, technological, informational — in the Indo-Pacific and beyond raises a larger conundrum for the alliance.

That conundrum: Can Korea continue to maintain a neutral stance toward China while also maintaining its alliance with the United States?

Experts are divided.

“Now we know that the U.S. and South Korea do not have the same objective,” Mr. Yang said. “For the U.S., it is about deterring China, but Korea’s objective is not having another war on the Korean peninsula.”

While Washington officials prod Seoul to join the China deterrence, contrarian officials in Korea — the junior partner in the alliance — are compelled to stay quiet.

“Admitting different goals is the start,” Mr. Yang said. “But nobody in government can speak about this openly.”

Politicians’ silence does not mean they don’t understand strategic realities, argued Chun In-bum, a retired general.

“If you are securing the Korean peninsula against North Korea, is that not, at the same time, securing it against China?” he asked. “USFK actually meets both purposes, but why would a [Korean] politician want to say that? He would want to avoid the issue, or would be in a position to speak the truth — which politicians don’t want to do.”

Others agree that strategic determinism is not set in stone, and they think post-Trump administrations may offer South Korea more leeway without taking an either-or choice.

“Ultimately, it is entirely possible to see a world where the U.S. says it can differentiate,” Mr. Richey said. “Threats don’t have to take the Colby approach; the U.S. can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

And Mr. Chun is convinced that if push came to shove, South Korea would side with the United States.

“I am sure that it is the goal of any responsible politician to try and be a ‘balancer’ — but realistically I don’t believe we can be neutral,” he said. “Our values — freedoms, the capitalist system, the belief that all humans are created equal — are all aligned with the United States.”