South Korean President Lee Jae-myung faces an early foreign policy trial just two months into office, with back-to-back summits in Tokyo and Washington testing his ability to steer through Donald Trump’s unilateral push to remake postwar rules on trade, security and alliances.
The meetings follow trade deals in which Seoul and Tokyo narrowly avoided Trump’s steepest tariffs – at the cost of committing hundreds of billions of dollars in new U.S. investments.
Trump’s transactional approach has stretched beyond trade to security, stoking fears in Seoul that he may demand higher payments for hosting U.S. troops or even trim America’s military footprint in the region as he pivots attention toward China.
Those concerns mount as South Korea and Japan face deepening coordination between nuclear-armed rivals North Korea and Russia – partners in the Ukraine war and in efforts to break isolation and evade sanctions.
Here is what is at stake for U.S. allies in Asia as they deal with an America First president more unyielding than his predecessors:
