Hong Kong, one of the strongest allies in the United States in Asia, South Korea has had a difficult start with President Donald Trump, fighting in tariff conversations, since he spent months without a permanent leader.
But its new president, Lee Jae-Myung, has arrived for a meeting with Trump on Monday that promoted an offer of $ 150 billion whose name will surely attract the US leader: “Make the naval construction of the United States great again.”
The package, to which South Korean officials also refer as a MASGA, includes the construction of new US shipyards, the training of naval construction personnel and the maintenance of the US marine ships.
It is a key part of the last minute trade agreement, South Korea arrived last month with Trump, who says he wants to revitalize the naval construction of the United States for reasons of economic and economic security. Trade and security will have a prominent place on the agenda on its summit with Lee, which occurs in increasing tensions with China and North Korea.
After decades of industry decrease, the United States now represents less than 1% of the global naval construction sector, according to the Group of National Security experts RAND, compared to 50% for China, 30% for South Korea and 10% for Japan. The team, designs and knowledge of South Korea could help again put the United States on the map.
On Tuesday, Read and possibly Trump will visit a Philadelphia shipyard acquired last year by the South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group.
The Naval Construction Initiative is “a strategic and symbolic victory” for South Korea, as well as for the United States, Eun told Jo, a government assistant professor at William & Mary and director of her Asia Policies Laboratory.
“I think it is an intelligent movement to try to ensure an influence on a critical American sector, while at the same time counteracts Chinese expansion in global maritime infrastructure,” News told NBC in a telephone interview on Sunday.
“Bromance ‘is not expected
The White House Summit is an important opportunity to read for the interests of South Korea with Trump after months of political instability created by the failed statement of the martial law of former President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Although Lee comes from a liberal party, he and Trump share a lot in common, both have been subject to murder attempts, and both are more open to diplomacy with North Korea with nuclear weapons than their predecessors.
But they have very different perspectives on political, economic and foreign politics, which could make the summit challenging, said Bae Jong-chan, president of Insight K, a private group of experts in Seoul.
“One will not be able to wait for the joke between President Lee and President Trump,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday.
The relationship has already been tense for Trump’s tariffs on South Korea, the tenth largest economy in the world, which has a great commercial surplus with the United States.
Trump said last month that the American rate on southern Korea imports would be 15%, below the 25% they had threatened before. He said that South Korea, which does not impose any tariff on US goods, managed to “buy” the United States rate promising $ 450 billion in investment and energy purchases of the United States, including the Naval Construction Fund of $ 150 billion.
Jo said Lee is trying to block the favorable terms to South Korea in the commercial agreement, which remains not written and largely unclear.
“I think it wants it to be firm and solid, that it has at least some sense of predictability and stability in its economic relations,” he said.
More complicated are questions about the long safety alliance of South Korea with the United States and its position on China.
Trump wants South Korea to assume more responsibility for his own defense, releasing the almost 30,000 members of the US service parked there to concentrate more on containing China, the largest strategic rival in Washington.
South Korea cares that such change can leave it more exposed to the threats of North Korea, as well as increasing the possibilities that it can lead to a possible conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan, the democracy of Beijing Island states as its territory.
Although Lee firmly supports the United States Korean Alliance and South Korea, it also has to balance relations with China, the main commercial partner of South Korea.
On Sunday, a special envoy told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing that South Korea expects to normalize relations with China after years of tension.
Lee has long expressed his reluctance to take sides between the United States and China, and his pragmatic approach on South Korean Korea’s relations “is unlikely to feel comfortably with President Trump,” Bae said.
Lee makes us his second stop
Before heading to Washington, Lee stopped in Tokyo for a summit with Prime Minister Shigeru Ihiba on his first foreign visit since he was elected president in June.
“That was a very deliberate and strategic movement,” said Jo, while the two American allies seek influence to protect themselves from Trump’s vicissitudes.
On his flight from Tokyo to Washington on Sunday, Lee told journalists that he had asked Ishiba from details about Japan’s negotiations with the United States, and that Ishhiba had given “many very friendly tips.”
Lee and Ishiba, whose countries have historically disagree, agreed to improve bilateral ties so that they can be better coordinated with the United States against China and North Korea.
Despite the interest of Washington and Seoul, North Korea has dismissed the idea of new denuclearization conversations, saying that Trump must accept it as a nuclear energy. The Trump-Lee summit occurs when the US military and South Koreans perform annual joint exercises that North Korea condemns as an invasion trial.
Bae said that Lee is “will probably move away from the summit with a detailed task” on North Korea, tariffs, military costs and the role of US troops in South Korea, among other issues.
If “it is not delivered as President Trump considers convenient,” Trump can protest omitting the Asia and Pacific Economic Cooperation Meeting, South Korea is organizing this fall.
“MASGA cannot cover everything for President Lee when dealing with President Trump,” Bae said.
Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong and Stella Kim in Los Angeles.
