By Ramon Pacheco Pardo
1.9.2025
Introduction
On 23 August and 25 August 2025, President Lee Jae-myung held summit meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru in Tokyo and United States (US) President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, respectively. These were Lee’s first two summit meetings since taking office as the new South Korean president in June of this year. These two summits served Lee to deliver three key foreign policy messages. The first message is that the US continues and will continue to be South Korea’s main diplomatic, security, economic and technology partner – as has been the case for decades. This should help to dispel the lingering and misguided doubts that some have regarding the extent to which the liberal Lee will work together with the US. The second is that Japan will continue to be a key partner for South Korea under Lee, both bilaterally and via trilateral cooperation, also including the US. In fact, Lee became the first president in South Korean history to hold his first summit meeting with Japan, rather than the United States. The third is that the erroneous characterisation of Lee as “pro-China” or “pro-North Korea” does not hold. The new South Korean president certainly wants better relations with both countries, but this does not entail prioritising relations with them over the US, especially, and other like-minded partners.
What are the key takeaways of Lee Jae-myung’s summit meeting with Donald Trump?
There seems to be a general agreement that the summit meeting between Lee and Trump was a success, and post-summit polls indicate that a majority of South Koreans agree with this assessment. To a large extent, this seems to stem from several factors, including: 1) the pre-existing tariff agreement between the two sides signed in July 2025; 2) the rapport between the South Korean and US leaders, as seen during their joint pre-summit press availability; 3) Lee’s ability to build on his long political experience to manage the meeting with Trump; or 4) South Korea’s promises to boost defence spending and to invest in the US with energy and other imports from the US, among others. Overall, the first Lee-Trump summit seems to have opened the doors to a constructive relationship between Seoul and Washington during the second Trump administration.
Having said that, South Korea and the US are yet to publish a joint statement following the summit. This signals that the two sides will need to negotiate a range of issues at the working level in the coming months. Some of the most relevant include so-called “strategic flexibility”, or the purpose and number of American troops based in South Korea as the US focused on China and requests that South Korea takes the lead in the deterrence of North Korea; the annual payment that South Korea will have make for US troops to remain in the country as part of the bilateral Special Measures Agreement between both sides; details of the proposed US$350 billion South Korean investments in the US in return for a reduction in US tariffs on products such as cars and semiconductors; details of Seoul’s “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again” proposal to support the US shipping industry; and the potential resumption of dialogue between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a move that Lee supports as he seeks to improve inter-Korean relations..
Also relevant was Trump’s apparent decision to attend the 2025 APEC Summit to be held in Gyeongju on 31 October-1 November 2025. The Lee government is seeking for both Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend the summit, in what would be a diplomatic coup for Seoul. In particular, the Lee government is keen on having the US president visit South Korea for the summit as a sign of his commitment to the South Korea-US alliance. Trump’s visit to South Korea could also potentially lead to a meeting with North Korea’s Kim.
What are the key takeaways of Lee Jae-myung’s summit meeting with Ishiba Shigeru?
South Korea and Japan face a similar international position as well as domestic issues to address in common. At the international level, they have to deal with a more assertive China, a nuclear North Korea and a less reliable United States. At the domestic level, they are focusing on issues such as stagnant or declining population growth, energy security or regional disparities. In this context, Seoul and Tokyo issued a joint statement leaving aside historical grievances and focusing on a “future-oriented” relationship. This was the first joint statement between the two countries in 17 years, a sign of the warming ties between the two neighbours.
Moving forward, South Korea and Japan have vowed to work together bilaterally on a range of issues in which both sides feel they can benefit from cooperation. These include industrial growth, the development of AI or the denuclearisation of North Korea. Even though both countries acknowledge that trilateral cooperation with the US is crucial for their security and economic growth, it is noticeable that Lee and Ishiba also want to emphasise the need for South Korea and Japan to work together outside of this trilateral framework. In this respect, both sides have also decided to set up one or more task forces to learn from each other’s experiences in tackling the domestic issues mentioned above. This suggests that Lee’s commitment to a “pragmatic” foreign policy includes setting aside historical disputes with Japan to focus on the many ways in which South Korea and Japan can work together.
__________
The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy (CSDS) or the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
