South Korean President Lee will meet Trump in Washington on Monday: NPR

Seoul, South Korea-on the way to his first summit with President Trump, the President of South Korea pushed pressure from the United States to refocus the 71-year-old military alliance in his country with the United States to dissuade North Korea and to the fight against China.

“This is not a problem with which we can easily agree,” Lee Jae-Myung said during his flight to Washington, DC, alluding to the challenges that await him in the White House.

The Trump administration calls for the modernization of the American alliance of 71 -year -old American Korea, forged following the Korean War.

The United States has some 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea. For about two decades, he called for “strategic flexibility” to deploy them to meet the challenges of security far from the Korean peninsula. And he wants the support of South Korea, in particular by potentially sending troops to other countries and regions.

South Korea has already sent soldiers to help the United States in Vietnam and Iraq. But he considers North Korea, not China, his main threat, and does not want to be trained in a conflict with China, for example, Taiwan.

“For the South Koreans, what is at stake is the credibility of the Alliance, as well as the defense and deterrence against North Korea,” said Andrew Yeo, expert in Asia and American-South Korea of ​​the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, DC,

Lee Jae-Myung said during the weekend that he will raise a full range of questions related to North Korea with President Trump, including the need to diplomatically commit. Pyongyang continues to insist on the fact that he has no interest in dialogue with Seoul or Washington.

Ban Kil Joo, an associate professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, a reflection group funded by the South Korean government, said that cooperating with the United States on strategic flexibility would help “intensify the lever of South Korea in the United States”.

At the same time, Ban says: “South Korea must avoid designating the name of a specific country [China] As a major threat that these two countries should compensate or counter. “”

South Korea’s challenge to conclude a trade agreement

For decades, the default adjustment for many American allies and partners in Asia was to depend on the US security army, while relying on China for markets and trade.

Lee Jae-Myung wants to assert the autonomy and independence of the great powers, but it is not clear what options he has, apart from walking a thin line between them.

Lee also has the formidable challenge to transform a verbal agreement and a loose framework, agreed last month, in a full-fledged trade agreement with the United States

To reduce American prices on South Korean exports by 25% to 15%, South Korea has committed to invest $ 350 billion in the United States

The United States says that Trump will be able to choose investments and that the United States will collect 90% of profits. The Minister of Industry of South Korea said that the complaint “did not make sense”.

Most of the $ 350 billion will be in the form of loans and guarantees, rather than direct investments.

Investments may include $ 70 million that the South Korean naval manufacturer Hanwha Ocean Co. will spend to extend shipyards in Philadelphia, which President Lee Jae-Myung will visit during his American trip.

This is an example of how the United States is counting on South Korea to revitalize national manufacturing and compete with China for domination in high-tech sectors, such as semiconductors.

But commercial pressures are also one of the reasons why Lee has chosen an unusual route in the United States

Out of 10 South Korean presidents since 1980, Lee is the only one to make its first bilateral visit abroad in a country other than the United States-in this case, Japan (two have visited Europe first for multilateral meetings before visiting the United States).

Not more recently than 2019, the links between South Korea and Japan were seriously tense on historical and commercial disputes, and the United States had to cajolate the two to put aside their differences and cooperate on current security challenges, in particular by dealing with North Korea and China.

While South Korea and Japan have contributed thanks to the curry with the United States for decades, the Trump administration has now overturned the script, encouraging the two neighbors to compare notes on how to cope with the risks posed by the United States

“We have experienced opportunities when the United States had to pave the way for trilateral cooperation because the relationship between South Korea and Japan had embittered,” Wi Sung-Lac, National Security Advisor in South.

“This time, South Korea and Japan direct trilateral links,” Wi to journalists in Tokyo told.

The Eun Gong of NPR contributed to this report to Seoul.