US DEFENCE OF SOUTH KOREA
A priority for Biden will be reassuring his guest over the US commitment to “extended deterrence” – the US nuclear and military umbrella South Korea falls under.
“President Biden will reinforce and enhance our extended deterrence commitments to South Korea with respect to the threat” from North Korea, Sullivan said.
Sullivan said to expect “major deliverables on extended deterrence, on cyber cooperation and climate mitigation, foreign assistance, on investment, and on strengthening our people-to-people ties”.
But the two leaders have some “uncomfortable” topics to discuss, noted Katharine Moon, professor emerita of political science at Wellesley College.
The South Korean president has seen his domestic approval ratings dive over his handling of a recent US intelligence leak that appeared to reveal Washington was spying on Seoul.
However, he told NBC News in an interview that the spat would not have lasting impacts.
“I believe that this matter is no reason to shake the ironclad trust that supports the US-South Korea alliance, because it is based on shared values like freedom,” Yoon told NBC News. “When you have that trust, you don’t get shaken.”
Yoon is meanwhile likely to come under pressure from the White House to do more to help the US support Ukraine, as Washington looks to South Korea – the world’s ninth-largest arms exporter – to help secure ammunition and weapons for Kyiv.
South Korea has sent humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and has sold tanks and howitzers to Poland, but Seoul has a longstanding policy of not providing weapons to active conflict zones.
Seoul is also mired in a diplomatic spat with China after Yoon blamed recent heightened tensions over Taiwan on “attempts to change the status quo by force”.