The course of regional crises and conflicts around the world will be determined by the United States presidential elections in November. While the Democrats’ desire to continue with Kamala Harris suggests continuity with the current policies of the Joe Biden era, the course of foreign policy in the event of a victory for the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, is a matter of debate.
Undoubtedly, the Asia-Pacific side of this policy is an important point for US security and foreign policy strategy.
To sum up the situation of the last five years, the US agenda of ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’ has brought the major power balances in the region closer, from an informal alliance against China and North Korea to partnerships with legitimised security agreements and action plans.
On Sunday 28 July, at a fast-track meeting in Tokyo, the US, Japan and South Korea signed agreements to secure gains in security cooperation and strengthen military alliances ahead of a new president in November.
South Korea felt the need to send its defence minister to Tokyo for the talks, his first official visit to the country in 15 years.
What has changed?
In March 2018, a group of senior officials from the South Korean democratic government of Moon Jae-in travelled to Pyongyang for a meeting hosted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. At the meeting, Kim announced that he was open to discussing the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula if the US was willing to provide security guarantees for North Korea’s border security and sovereignty. Following these positive steps, Moon met Kim in Panmunjom on 27 April 2018. Moon and Kim discussed the resumption of the US-China quadrilateral talks and the signing of a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. They also signed a joint statement calling for ‘complete denuclearisation, a denuclearised Korean Peninsula’. These important diplomatic processes were supported by Trump, and on 12 June 2018, Trump and Kim Jong-un met in Singapore.
Diplomatic efforts with the North stalled in 2019, with high-level talks between Kim and Trump going nowhere. The South Korean opposition stepped up its election efforts, claiming that this approach trampled on national honour. South Korean public opinion was influenced by US Democratic politicians who said that peace on the peninsula was not the way forward. Having made no progress with Pyongyang, Washington decided to abandon its previous policy towards South Korea by demanding that Seoul more than quadruple its financial contribution to the cost of maintaining the US military presence in the country.
In fact, South Korean right-wing conservatives, who believed that peace on the peninsula was not the solution and that ‘Kim and his country must be destroyed’, welcomed the new president, Yoon Seok-yeol, to the White House, where Yoon performed the song ‘American Pie’ with great honour.
Fumio Kishida, who replaced Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in Japan, reiterated his determination to carry on the ‘hoshu honryu’ traditions and declared that he would continue Abe’s remaining works. The most prominent of these policies was the continuation of steps to change the ‘pacifist defence strategy’, Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. While Kishida intensified joint agreements with the US Democrats, he also signed rapprochement agreements with the South Korean Yoon government, which is moving in the same direction, in order to satisfy the US.
What are the expectations?
While the race between Harris and Trump is in full swing, Yoon and Kishida appear to be polling poorly in their respective countries. This raises the question of whether a change of leadership in all three countries will continue the ‘Camp David spirit’.
Sources in the region say that the Japanese and South Korean governments have held or are planning dozens of high-level meetings with right-wing think tanks such as the America First Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute, which are known to be planning policies that Trump could implement in 2025.
When asked for assurances on the matter, Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said: ‘No one has the authority to make promises on behalf of Donald Trump about continuing a dialogue with another administration’.
Trump’s recent comments on China and North Korea are seen as a signal that he will pursue a more trade-oriented process in the Asia-Pacific. A consortium of conservative think tanks known as ‘Project 2025’, which is making detailed plans for Trump’s second presidency, describes South Korea and Japan as ‘critical allies’ in military, economic, diplomatic and technological terms in Trump scenarios. However, it is unclear how long public support for the South Korean conservatives and Japanese Liberal Democrats in power will last if the Democrats leave the US government.
