President Trump is due to meet South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Aug. 25. President Trump’s agenda for the meeting is quite clear: iron out the details of the sweeping trade agreement signed last month, determine cost sharing and wartime operational control for U.S. and Korean forces, and plan how best to counter Chinese influence. President Trump is focused on bringing economic growth and prosperity to America and to our trading partners.
President Lee’s agenda is not as clear. He comes from the hard Left of the Korean political spectrum and seems more intent on helping the North Korean economy than defending against a potential North Korean attack. He also is not sure whether he’s on China’s side or ours. Lee might make the very dangerous mistake of thinking he can ‘play’ President Trump.
Lee was elected in June with a strong majority in the parliament. Heady with the wine of near-absolute control, they are behaving like an old-style Communist government. They have imprisoned former President Yoon, threatening life imprisonment and even execution. Last week, prison guards injured the former President by rough handling, and he required hospital care. Recently the government also arrested Yoon’s wife, charging her with corruption.
The Lee government is muzzling prominent American critics of his human rights policies, like Amb. Morse Tan, and oppressing Koreans who meet him. That is a mistake: Tan was appointed by President Trump in his first term, and Trump is likely to pay attention to the treatment of his former emissary. Lee’s police forces have summoned Christian church leaders and subjected them to investigation just for meeting with Amb. Tan.
Meanwhile, Lee’s party, the Democratic Party, has just elected Jung Chung Rae as party chairman. Rae was convicted in 1989 of breaking into the U.S. ambassador’s residence and bombing it. He was sentenced to four years in prison. Before that he was arrested for distributing leaflets supporting the North Korean self-reliance philosophy called ‘juche.’ Jung is so far Left that he was barred from entering the U.S., even by the Obama Administration. But in the early 2000’s he worked with now-President Lee to establish a Leftist political movement, and he’s the man Lee backed to be chairman of the party.
Lee is trying to play both sides, between the U.S. and China, but he’s not very good at it. In fact, he is playing his most dangerous game against the Korean people, trying to consolidate power. He needs to make up his mind what he wants: does he want to build an engine of oppression to remain in power forever? Or will he try to improve the lives of the Korean people?
While Lee builds a repressive state at home, he is reaching out to the U.S. to avoid tariffs. He ‘bought down’ Korea’s general rate to 15% by offering a massive bribe to the U.S economy: Korea agreed to a $350 billion investment in U.S.-owned and controlled projects, with President Trump selecting the projects. Of this, $150 billion is earmarked for the U.S. shipbuilding industry, with the remainder allocated to sectors like semiconductors, batteries, biotechnology, nuclear power, and other strategic industries. He also committed to purchasing $100 billion in U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) or other energy products.
Lee may believe this will buy him the right to be ignored by Trump, so he can quietly continue supplying the Chinese navy with ship engines. But Korea can’t build American ships while they are supplying engines for Chinese naval ships. Korea will have to stop supplying the Chinese navy if it fulfills the U.S.-Korea trade agreement. This will anger China and drive a wedge between them. On the other hand, if Korea refuses to give up their Chinese military business, that will anger the Americans.
Another example of Lee’s attempts to have it both ways is his promise to ‘send tourists’ to North Korea. This is a transparent attempt just to transfer cash to the regime. What would induce South Koreans to go, and why would Trump trust him if he’s sending tourists to Pyongyang? At the same time, why would China trust him if he’s negotiating tariffs with the U.S.? And why would South Koreans trust him if he’s restricting their churches and forbidding them to meet with Americans?
The good news is that the great mass of Koreans and Americans and their long mutual dedication to liberty and individual rights will carry the relationship forward. If President Lee continues the oppressive moves his government has started, and continues his tilt toward China and North Korea, South Koreans will watch America prosper while their economy folds under the weight of Leftist policies.
In the summit, President Trump will outline a vision of the future that unleashes the power of private enterprise in both countries. It is up to President Lee and the parliament to endorse policies that keep Washington and Seoul close. These include protecting freedom of speech, religion, and conscience. If they do, and Korean companies gain an ‘early mover’s advantage’ in selling to the largest consumer market in the world by manufacturing goods in America, then they too will prosper.
President Lee has a choice to make, and President Trump is offering him the golden door.
Carla Sands is the Chair of America First Policy Institute’s Foreign Policy Initiative and Distinguished Senior Fellow for their Energy Policy. She’s the former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark. Bart Marcois is a former career Foreign Service Officer and was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for International Affairs. He is President of MPIC, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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