President Lee Jae-myung returned home from his visit to the United States on Aug. 26, after wrapping up his first in-person summit talks with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Lee returns to Korea with tangible outcomes, such as attaining comradery with President Trump and opening a “horizon of new Korea-U.S. cooperation,” according to experts.
U.S. President Trump’s posting his criticism of Korea on his social media accounts delayed the summit talks by 32 minutes, but the two leaders progressed the talks in an amicable atmosphere. The meeting lasted two hours and 20 minutes.
President Trump praised President Lee as a great leader. President Lee called President Trump a “peacemaker,” as both shared the view on a need for a dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
The two leaders focused on building peace on the Korean Peninsula and modernizing and strengthening the Korea-U.S. alliance, presidential spokesperson Kang Yoo-jung said.
President Trump promised President Lee “full support from the United States.”
President Trump sidestepped questions from reporters about any potential reduction of U.S. forces in Korea.
During the summit talks, the two leaders made “tangible outcomes and a meaningful progress in building trust and ramping up cooperation between the two countries,” Prof. Min Jung-hoon with the Korea National Diplomatic Academy said.
In his conservation with Director John Hamley of Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), President Lee said that in the past, there was a “tendency of leaning toward the United States in security and toward China economically, but such an attitude is no longer possible.”
In a briefing at the Press Center in Washington DC, Presidential National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said Korea achieved outcomes as expected, especially in stabilizing Korea-U.S. economic and trade sectors, modernizing the Korea-U.S. alliance so it corresponds to national interests, and exploring new cooperation areas.
But the two leaders wrapped up their first summit without announcing any agreements.
Senior Presidential Policy Secretary Kim Yong-beom, who led tariff negotiations with the United States, said the two leaders reconfirmed the agreement reached in the previous tariff negotiations and the two countries would speed up documenting.
As for the U.S. demand to modernize the Korea-U.S. military alliance, and for expanded strategic flexibility of U.S. forces in Korea, Presidential National Security Adviser Wi said Korea made the first proposal to raise national defense spending as a way of modernizing the Korea-U.S. alliance.
The U.S. response was positive. It may be construed as circumventing any potential U.S. demand for Korea to shoulder more of the cost of hosting U.S. forces in Korea. Instead, Korea will purchase American-made advanced weapons.
With that hurdle passed, other difficulties remain. Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik said the new normal of trade and security negotiations in the Trump era means endless discussions.
Before he headed home on Aug. 26, President Lee toured the Hanwha Philly Shipyard in Philadelphia, a symbol of the “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again (MASGA)”, a Korea-U.S. cooperation project the two countries have agreed to push ahead with.
At the shipyard Hanwha acquired for $100 million last year, President Lee attended a ceremony to christen the State of Maine for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD).
President Lee said the 72-year history of the Korea-U.S. alliance will open a new chapter of “future-oriented, comprehensive strategic alliance,” combining a security alliance, economic alliance and technology alliance through the shipyard.
With the holding of the Korea-U.S. summit talks, Korean companies announced plans to invest a combined $150 billion (209 trillion won).
Major Korean companies, including Samsung, HD Hyundai, Hanjin and Doosan, struck a combined 11 contracts and MOUs with the U.S. side in diverse areas, such as shipbuilding, next-generation nuclear power, aviation, LNG and core minerals.
The latest investment plans are separate from investment funds worth a combined $350 billion Koreas and the United Stated agreed during tariffs negotiations in July.
The investment plans were unveiled during the Koreas-U.S. business roundtable, which took place at Washington DC on Aug. 25, with 16 Korean conglomerate leaders and CEOs in attendance.
Hyundai Motor Group decided to build a robot factory capable of 30,000 units annually, a new electric furnace steel mill and expand a local car production by investing a combined $26 billion over the next four years.
Hanjin Group came up with a plan to invest $50 billion, including the purchase of 103 aircraft from Boeing and 19 aircraft engines from GE Aerospace.
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