Taken together \u2013 and against the backdrop of Trump\u2019s desire to strike a grand bargain with Chinese President Xi Jinping \u2013 the developments have rattled observers of US policy in Asia.<\/p>\n
Evan Feigenbaum, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former adviser to Republican secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, said the US had gone from the Democrats\u2019 \u201cpivot to Asia\u201d to a \u201creverse pivot from Asia\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also recently said the US under Trump was \u201clong on attitude, short on strategy\u201d in Asia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Derek Grossman, an international relations professor at the University of Southern California who specialises in Asia, said the pivot towards Asia was \u201cdead\u201d.<\/p>\n
There may be some truth to that. But there are other factors at play here.<\/p>\n
It is surely no coincidence that Trump\u2019s order to scale down military exercises came just as South Korean Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan touched down in Dallas on Sunday for high-stakes trade meetings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nSince his failed summitry with Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019, Kim Jong-un has ended his country\u2019s isolation and cultivated an emerging triple entente with Russia and China.<\/span>AP<\/span><\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nHe was there to discuss a $US350 billion ($490 billion) trade and investment deal, born of tariff negotiations, which is facing difficulties. Only a day before, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung dismissed his chief trade negotiator, while the Trump administration has expressed frustration with the slow pace of talks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Patrick Cronin, the Asia-Pacific security chair at the right-leaning Hudson Institute in Washington, says Trump is using his usual ambiguity to disrupt the negotiations. His social media post was \u201cmeant to be a shock\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nIndustry Minister Kim Jung-kwan is South Korea\u2019s point man on negotiations with Trump over trade \u2013 and maybe more.<\/span>Bloomberg<\/span><\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cHe is trying to put pressure on Lee Jae-myung to concede more of what Washington wants,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are both tactical and transactional negotiating reasons why Trump did what he did. There\u2019s also a policy play, if not a strategy play.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the trade deal. Lee is pushing hard to regain military independence from the US through what is known as the transfer of wartime operational control, or \u201copcon\u201d \u2013 an effort he renewed after Trump\u2019s order to reduce joint exercises.<\/p>\n
Since the 1953 armistice in the Korean War, authority to direct South Korean forces in a time of war has rested with the US. The head of the Combined Forces Command is always an American four-star general. Up to 30,000 US troops are stationed in South Korea; Camp Humphreys is the largest overseas US military base anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Transfer back to South Korean control has been on the table since 2006. Cronin says Trump is leveraging Lee\u2019s desire to get it done quickly for negotiation purposes.<\/p>\n
As part of the aforementioned $US350 billion deal, South Korea has pledged to invest $US150 billion in the lagging US shipbuilding industry. For comparison, Australia is paying $US3 billion into the US submarine industrial base as part of the AUKUS pact.<\/p>\n
Cronin points out that the administration is sceptical of some of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea\u2019s left-wing tendencies, including support for the labour movement. And in another parallel with Australia, Washington is concerned about Seoul\u2019s treatment of the technology industry.<\/p>\n
\n\u2018It\u2019s strange when you get people even from the administration who say: don\u2019t necessarily believe the words that the commander-in-chief says.\u2019<\/p>\n
Richard Fontaine, chief executive of Centre for a New American Security<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\nRepublicans in Congress have written a series of letters to South Korea demanding a more lenient policy on big tech. In April, a group of 54 members of Congress wrote to South Korea\u2019s ambassador to the US complaining of \u201ctargeted and discriminatory actions against US companies\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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That included actions against the company Coupang \u2013 the so-called \u201cAmazon of Asia\u201d \u2013 which operates mainly in South Korea but is now headquartered in Seattle and listed on the New York Stock Exchange. After a massive data breach last year, South Korea fined Coupang more than $US400 million in June.<\/p>\n
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