President Donald Trump and North Korean president Kim Jong Un
President Trump’s latest move to downgrade U.S. involvement in long-planned military exercises with South Korea should make one thing very clear if it was not already. Under Donald Trump, the United States cannot be viewed as a reliable ally by anyone, except for Israel.
Trump has zero respect for the commitments of prior administrations or even treaty obligations. He doesn’t even care about his own commitments, as Canada and Mexico have discovered, as he freely ignores the trade agreement he negotiated in his first term. He does whatever he feels like.
For this reason, one can hope that South Korea was not surprised by Trump’s decision to downsize the joint military exercises with South Korea, as he announced his renewed friendship with Kim Jong Un. For folks with poor memories, Trump has repeatedly touted the “love letter” that the North Korean dictator sent him. He even stole the letter from the White House when he left office in 2021. (The letter is the property of the U.S. government, not Donald Trump.)
The story gets worse. Trump complained that South Korea refused to join the war that he and Israel started with Iran, even though he said he really didn’t need its help. Trump also again claimed the war was to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon, even though no one in the world, except Trump, seems to think the country is anywhere close to having a nuclear weapon.
The irony of this gets even worse when we consider that Trump’s friend, Kim Jong Un, actually does have nuclear weapons, and likely has the means to deliver them to the United States. The Clinton administration had a multi-nation agreement designed to keep North Korea from getting nuclear weapons, which George W. Bush then abandoned.
There were efforts at a new agreement under Obama, but Trump quickly abandoned these after getting the love letter from Kim. This undoubtedly continues to be a great source of laughter in Pyongyang.
In addition to downgrading the military exercises, Trump also wants more money from South Korea for its defense assistance. On top of seriously overestimating the number of U.S. troops in the country (39,000 in Trump’s head, compared to 28,500 in reality), Trump apparently still has no understanding of the idea of collective defense.
If Trump wants to be able to project force against China, which may not be a good idea, but something he seems to want to do, then having an ally like South Korea is incredibly valuable. Just as the base in Bahrain, which Iran destroyed, was crucial for supporting Trump’s attack on Iran, the bases potentially provided by Korea would be of huge value in a military conflict. But this is a point that is likely too complicated for Donald Trump and his Fox News host Defense Secretary to understand.
Anyhow, the key takeaway for South Korea and the rest of the world is that the United States under Donald Trump cannot be counted on as an ally. And it would be very foolish for any country to view it as one.
Also, when it comes to trade, Trump’s commitments are absolutely meaningless. South Korea pledged $350 billion in investment in the United States in exchange for a modest reduction in the tariff rate that Trump imposed on imports from their country. Given the fact that Trump could raise his tariffs any time he feels like it, South Korea would be wise to keep its investment as a pledge. Only a fool would give something real in exchange for a Donald Trump promise.
Whatever tariff Trump ends up charging on our imports from South Korea is likely to have more to do with how he feels on a given day than any agreement between the two countries. As he continually tells the world, Trump does not care about his commitments. That’s the way he did business and the way he runs the country.
Dean Baker is a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the author of the 2016 book Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. Please consider subscribing to his Substack.
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- Trump orders cuts to South Korea joint drills despite warnings about Kim regime | North Korea | The Guardian ›
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