South Korean lawmakers brace for US election as Harris, Trump diverge on North Korea

As the US election race enters its final two months, South Korean lawmakers are bracing for the impact of a Harris or Trump administration as the two presidential candidates offer opposing approaches to North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un.

Ruling People Power Party lawmakers gushed over US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris putting down the North Korean leader in her nomination acceptance speech in Chicago on Thursday, in a sharp contrast with her Republican rival Donald Trump.

“I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong-un who are rooting for Trump,” she said. Trump, referring to his efforts on North Korea when he was president, claimed at one point over the Republican National Convention that Kim would want him to win the presidential election.

Rep. Han Ki-ho, former three-star general steering the ruling party’s foreign affairs and national security committee, told The Korea Herald on Sunday that a Harris administration would be “better” for South Korea’s defense alliance with the US.

“Trump pulled some erratic moves the last time he was in power, paling around with Kim Jong-un. As a second-time presidential candidate, he still likes to boast he is close to the North Korean leader,” he said.

“It would be better for South Korea to be able to count on the stability of alliance diplomacy of President Joe Biden -- already in close alignment with the Yoon Suk Yeol administration -- that Harris would succeed, rather than be at the mercy of Trump’s whims.”

Han noted with concern that the goal of complete denuclearization of North Korea was not mentioned in the Democratic Party's policy platform approved last week.

“The US probably knows more about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities than any other country. North Korean denuclearization being left out as a policy goal may hint at some shift in US strategy over circumstances that are not officially known,” he said.

Some Democratic Party of Korea lawmakers hoped for Trump to turn around North Korea’s refusal to engage in dialogue after the summit in Hanoi proved fruitless.

Rep. Chung Dong-young, who led the opposition party delegation to the US in June to meet with Trump campaign officials, said the Republican nominee “may be the hope” for progress toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

“For 12 years of Democratic Party administrations under Biden and Obama, the US maintained a policy of ‘strategic patience’ on North Korea, which was in effect more like ‘strategic negligence,’” Chung, who met with late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2005 as envoy for former President Roh Moo-hyun, told The Korea Herald.

“North Korea functions in a strictly top-down system. It is Kim Jong-un who calls all the shots. Leaders have to meet him face to face for any change. To crack the denuclearization nut, the Trump approach seems to be the way to go.”

Chung added that “in all other respects, apart from a possible step forward on North Korea, Trump winning again would be disastrous in terms of global order.”

He hinted that the Democratic Party was planning leader Rep. Lee Jae-myung’s US trip around the election.

Ruling party Rep. Kim Gunn, who was Seoul’s top nuclear envoy until February, said Trump returning to the White House to repeat his unusual rapprochement with North Korea seen over his first term was “highly unlikely.”

“One of the biggest misconceptions about a second Trump presidency is that things will be like 2018 all over again, with Kim Jong-un opening up and returning to the table,” he told The Korea Herald.

Unless the North Korean leader “demonstrates as clear a level of commitment to denuclearize as by destroying nuclear test sites,” the lawmaker said he did not think the next US administration would be willing to entertain him like the last time, regardless of which party sits in the White House.

Democratic Party Rep. Wi Sung-lac, who served as Seoul’s envoy to Russia, told The Korea Herald the tolls of another Trump term “could be heavier for South Korea.”

“If the US under Trump once again pursues talks with Kim Jong-un, for instance, and initiates negotiations on nuclear issues without involving South Korea, we might find ourselves in a situation where we have to depend entirely on him to consider our position,” he worried.

In a previous interview with The Korea Herald, Wi said that Newt Gingrich, a former US House speaker believed to be close to Trump, told the South Korean lawmaker delegation that US troops in South Korea could be reduced if the Republican contender wins.

The unpredictability of Trump could open up opportunities for South Korea to boost its self-defense, according to ruling party Rep. Yu Yong-weon, the founding head of the National Assembly forum on developing the country’s nuclear potential.

“As Harris would likely inherit the legacy of the Washington Declaration, which is characterized by increased extended deterrence, the question for South Korea is how credibly this system could hold up as the North Korean nuclear crisis escalates,” he told The Korea Herald.

“South Korea could get the US to agree to revise the nuclear energy agreement to allow reprocessing, in return for paying greater costs for US protection as Trump had suggested.”