Ji Da-gyum
For over a decade, I’ve navigated the complexities of North Korean affairs, security, and foreign policy from both Seoul and Washington, D.C. As the National Desk Political Team Lead, I track the pulse of geopolitics, closely following developments from the Unification Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. My mornings start with Rodong Sinmun—North Korea’s state mouthpiece—before diving into the day’s headlines from Seoul and Washington.
Pyongyang dismisses scaled-back allied drills as no “goodwill measure,” but Trump later says he still expects to meet Kim this year President Lee Jae Myung presides over an Ulchi National Security Council meeting at the National Crisis Management Center at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Aug. 18. (Cheong Wa Dae via Yonhap) President Lee Jae Myung is throwing his weight behind US President Donald Trump’s renewed push to reengage North Korea, pledging to serve as a “pacemaker” preserving the pulse of any renewed diplomacy between Washington and Pyongyang.“President Trump’s latest message strikes me as a major decision reflecting his deep deliberation over how to move beyond hostility and confrontation and build peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Lee said in a post on X on Thursday.At the same time, Lee coupled his endorsement of Trump’s overture with an emphasis on South Korea’s commitment to bolster its own defense capabilities, including the agreement to increase Seoul's defense spending toward 3.5 percent of GDP.“I fully agree with President Trump’s determination that the Republic of Korea itself should take responsibility for security on the Korean Peninsula,” Lee said, referring to South Korea by its official name.Lee’s remarks marked his first public response to Trump’s order Sunday to “substantially reduce” combined military exercises, which Trump said sent a “signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” toward North Korea.South Korea and the US announced Wednesday that the 2026 Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise, which began Monday, would end Friday, six days earlier than scheduled, with associated field training also scaled back.Lee underscored that his administration “believes that a peace regime in which there is no need to fight is the ultimate security asset.”“We share President Trump’s determination and efforts to create conditions for dialogue toward building a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, even if that means scaling back the current Korea-US combined exercises and field training drills, and we commend him for that decision,” Lee said.“I hope President Trump’s decision will lead, through trust-building and a resumption of dialogue between North Korea and the US, to the establishment of a stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.”Lee also reiterated that he would “do my utmost to serve as a pacemaker, helping facilitate and contribute to President Trump’s efforts as a peacemaker,” a role he has repeatedly said he intends to play, including during his first summit with Trump in Washington last August.Lee reaffirms Hormuz commitmentLee also used the post to address Trump’s criticism of Seoul over Iran, reiterating South Korea’s willingness to contribute to international efforts to restore freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, where shipping has been severely disrupted since the Iran war began with US-Israeli strikes on Feb. 28.“The Republic of Korea government has also reiterated on several occasions its commitment to actively participate in efforts by the international community, including the US, to restore freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz,” Lee said.“To that end, our government will continue to communicate closely with the US, as it has done so far, on various forms of practical contribution within the bounds of what the Republic of Korea can undertake under its laws and basic policies.” President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Wendesay in Washington. (AP) Pyongyang rebuffs him, but Trump presses aheadLee’s message came at a delicate moment, with Trump extending a series of olive branches to Pyongyang even as he accused Seoul of reluctance to support US efforts on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.It also came just hours after Kim Yo-jong, a department director of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party and the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong-un, dismissed the scaling back of allied exercises, arguing that reductions in their size or duration did nothing to alter what Pyongyang sees as the fundamentally hostile nature of the US-South Korea military posture.“If the US side calculates that it can tout the measure it has taken this time as some sort of ‘goodwill measure,’ it will not get the answer it wants,” Kim said in a statement issued late Wednesday Seoul time.On Trump’s Monday claim that Kim Jong-un had responded to his overture for dialogue, Kim Yo-jong appeared to preserve a degree of strategic ambiguity.“As for reports from Washington that there had recently been communication between the leaders of the DPRK and the US, I know absolutely nothing about it, and it is perhaps the only matter related to our supreme leadership’s foreign policy of which I am unaware,” she said. DPRK is short for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.Yet Trump pressed ahead with his overture.Asked Wednesday whether he expected to meet Kim later this year, Trump replied, “Yeah, I will be.” He did not elaborate on when or where such a meeting might take place.Trump also underscored the stakes of his bid to resume summit diplomacy with the North Korean leader, pointing to the scale of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal and saying it possessed “57 very powerful nuclear weapons” — an unusually specific figure for a US president to cite publicly.“They should have never allowed it. If I were president, I wouldn't have allowed it. But he's got them,” Trump said.But Trump declined to say, when asked, whether his goal in trying to reengage the North Korean leader was still denuclearization.“Well, I don't want to talk about that. But I do have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un,” Trump said.
