Wednesday, July 2, 2025
News
Trump Says United States Will Solve North Korea Conflict If There Is One
By Stephanie Bulega-Nasuna
On June 27, U.S. President Donald Trump met with foreign ministers of Rwanda and Congo to broker a peace deal between the two after decades of conflict. A member of the press at the conference asked President Donald Trump if he sent a letter to Kim Jong Un through North Korean diplomats. Trump responded, “if there is a conflict… I get along with him very, very well, and we’ll get the conflict solved with North Korea.”
When President Trump said “if” there is a conflict the question is what signs are there now and how strong are they to point to pending conflict? Prior to this on June 24, a State Department spokesperson stated, “President Trump, in his first term, made significant outreach to North Korea. And what I can say, of course ... they’ve got their own nuclear program in North Korea, that we remain committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea, that remains a commitment.”
On June 21, Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-jung in a meeting with senior officials urged there be a swift restoration of suspended dialogue channels with North Korea. This came after South Korea’s new President Lee Jae Myung gave his stance for a peaceful co-existence with North Korea. Since April 2023, North Korea has been unresponsive to South Korea’s contact made twice a day through inter-Korean liaison channels. Then, National Intelligence Service Director Lee Jong-seok, on June 17, wrote in a written response to the National Assembly, “North Korea has been thoroughly keeping its distance from and ignoring South Korea since the martial law declaration at the end of last year.” Lee backs his claim with the fact North stopped its trash ballon offensives and has refrained from commenting on the impeachment crisis and the new administration’s nominations. The current South-North relations contrast greatly with 2023, during which time North Korea ramped up missile strikes and blew up roads and railways connecting to South Korea.
The current administrations of both South Korea and the United States have signaled openness to negotiating with North Korea. Yet, there is little to no progress on this front. The relations between North Korea and Russia vary greatly to its relations with the United States and South Korea. On June 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Pyongyang to meet Kim Jong Un to sign the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.” Article 4 of the treaty promises both parties military assistance if the other faces an armed aggression. In October of last year North Korea sent 11,000 soldiers and then 4,000 soldiers in February. Additionally, North Korea is supporting the reconstruction of Russia’s Kursk region with 1,000 military engineers and 5,000 construction troops. From Russia, North Korea is possibly receiving economic assistance, air defense missile systems, and drone and missile guidance. Kim Jong Un’s top foreign policy concern is the survival of the regime. Currently, Russia provides the technology and military assistance North Korea needs to defend themselves militarily and deter aggression from South Korea or the United States. The current signs do not point to unavoidable conflict, but high tensions. A huge scale conflict on the Korean Peninsula would threaten the regime. North Korea is shifting the status quo through strengthening through allies like Russia and bolstering its autonomy from its neighbors. Right now, South Korea and the United States are not offering a tangible need like Russia is. North Korea is signaling it will not return to negotiations until they are offered something the regime needs and aids their autonomy.
Trade Minister Yeo Visits Washington Ahead of Tariff Imposition
Sophia Shum Gagnier
Ahead of the July 8 deadline for U.S. reciprocal tariffs, South Korean Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo visited with congressional leaders to discuss the future of bilateral trade relations. This is the third round of U.S.-South Korea negotiations, but the first for Yeo since taking office, and the first high-level visit since the election of Lee Jae Myung as president.
During his visit, Minister Yeo met with several key players on the Hill, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, among others. In statements to the press, Yeo labelled the trade environment fostered by the Trump administration’s tariff schedule as “highly uncertain and severe.” Despite his rigorous agenda of meetings and a bilateral commitment back in May to do so, no finalized trade agreement has been reached on any notable area of South Korea’s key exports to nor imports from the United States.
Key areas of South Korea’s export economy are set to be slammed by Trump’s reciprocal tariffs and Section 232 tariffs on autos and steel. In 2024, the US accounted for 36.5% of South Korea’s total automotive part exports. Previously, President Trump stated his unwillingness to reduce this tariff for either South Korea or Japan. However, perhaps one heartening sign that the administration has become more willing to compromise comes out of its struck a deal with the United Kingdom: agreeing to a 10% rate on imported automobiles below a 100,000 unit quota. However, the South Korean automotive industry stands to further lose out given the proposed rollback of electric vehicle tax credits under the Trump administration’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” This issue was reportedly discussed with House lawmakers during Yeo’s visit.
Another key point during Yeo’s discussion was U.S. beef exports. The issue of American beef has become notable as a potential concession to be leveraged in negotiating lower tariffs on U.S. goods. Currently, South Korea is the largest importer of U.S. beef, which accounted for 55.3% of the country’s total meat imports in 2022. However, South Korea imposes a total ban on beef from cows aged over 30 months. Comments from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association in March to the Office of the US Trade Representative urged the US government to pursue the elimination of South Korea’s beef restrictions, and the issue has thus become a potential point for negotiating lower tariff rates.
Overall, Yeo’s visit to Washington produced relatively little in terms of results and left many in a state of anxiety and uncertainty. The tariff grace period is set to expire in a week, and yet no agreement to lower rates on South Korean products has been reached. There is perhaps some hope that damage to the South Korean automotive industry could be mitigated if either an agreement like that reached between the United States and United Kingdom is finalized, if both governments are ready to compromise on non-tariff issues, or if American lawmakers seek to use their policy-making power to shore up international relations.
This Week in Korean History
On July 1, 1967, South Korean leader Park Chung-hee officially began the second of what would become five consecutive terms as the country’s president. Park, a military general who forcibly seized control of the government four years prior, would rule until his assassination in 1979, making him the longest-tenured South Korean leader since the Korean War.