Seoul’s security stakes high in U.S. race as fate of alliance hangs in balance

In less than a fortnight, Democratic Party nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will face Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump in a presidential race that both politicians describe as having the highest stakes ever.

Left: U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks on March 26 in Raleigh, North Carolina. Right: Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27. [AFP/YONHAP]

In less than a fortnight, Democratic Party nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will face Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump in a presidential race that both politicians describe as having the highest stakes ever.

Like the rest of the world, the South Korean government and people have been closely following the U.S. presidential election and its potential consequences for heightened geopolitical tensions, especially as North Korea increasingly flexes its nuclear capabilities and draws closer to Russia.

"This will be the most important election in the history of our country," Trump said in his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in July. "War is now raging in Europe and the Middle East, a growing specter of conflict hangs over Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and all of Asia, and our planet is teetering on the edge of World War III. And this will be a war like no other war because of weaponry."

"The reality has been about standing as America always should, as a leader upholding international rules and norms, as a leader who shows strength, understanding that the alliances we have around the world are dependent on our ability to look out for our friends and not favor our enemies," Harris said in her nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, underscoring that democracy "is very much what is at stake here."

U.S. poll analysis website FiveThirtyEight's presidential election polling averages for both candidates as of Oct. 22.

Most polls show Harris and Trump in a dead heat in seven key swing states in the final stretch to the White House, making the Nov. 5 race potentially the closest presidential election of the century.

At this juncture of uncertainty, the Korean Peninsula is becoming increasingly entangled in global tensions.

Just last Friday, South Korean intelligence confirmed that North Korea is planning to deploy some 12,000 troops to aid Russia's war against Ukraine. That announcement followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's warning during a visit to Brussels on Oct. 17 that North Korean troops joining Russia "is the first step to a world war."

The Yoon Suk Yeol administration is watching the race closely as the candidate who enters the White House next January will determine U.S. foreign and security policies, including Washington's approach to its alliance with Seoul, North Korea-related issues and broader regional geopolitics going forward.

Both candidates are familiar to Seoul.

Trump, a real estate mogul, began his four-year term in 2017 by threatening Pyongyang with “fire and fury” before unexpectedly meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for a summit in Singapore in June 2018. He met Kim for another summit in Hanoi in February 2019 and a final handshake at Panmunjom in June that year.

During his presidency, Trump also questioned the necessity of the U.S. nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan and even hinted at reducing or withdrawing U.S. troops in allied countries unless they paid more for their upkeep. Whether he will stick to his transactional approach to alliances or take a softer hand if re-elected has yet to be seen.

Trump appears aware of such concerns and may take a softer approach if he returns to the Oval Office.

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, left, and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris tour NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on April 25, 2023, in Greenbelt, Maryland. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

American journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his new book "War" that Robert O'Brien, Trump's former national security adviser, and Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state, visited current South Korean Ambassador to Washington Cho Hyun-dong to convey to Seoul that a new Trump administration would be "accommodating."

They tried to push the line that "Trump would be more reasonable and more predictable" in a second presidency, Woodward wrote, as he "realized the relationship between South Korea and the United States was instrumental to mutual security and the two nations would be shouldering many burdens together."

On the other hand, Harris has met with Yoon several times since taking office in 2021 in her capacity as President Joe Biden's second-in-command, including her September 2022 visit to Seoul and the demilitarized zone and the South Korean president's state visit to Washington in April 2023, where the two countries reaffirmed their alliance and joint deterrence.

While Harris is expected to continue the Biden administration's foreign policies, especially its efforts to strengthen security cooperation after Trump's transactional treatment of American allies, the vice president is also at pains to emphasize she does not represent more of the same.

"My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden's presidency," Harris stressed in an interview with Fox News on Oct. 16, saying she would bring her own experiences and fresh ideas to represent a "new generation of leadership."

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, right, and former U.S. President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, take part in a presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 10. [AFP/YONHAP]

Regardless of the outcome, officials in Seoul say they have contacted both campaigns before the election to prepare for whoever takes office in the White House.

"North Korea is now a de facto nuclear weapons state, and nuclear weapons have become part of the regime's defense and security DNA," said Evans Revere, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for East Asia Policy Studies. "As a result, the next U.S. administration will, early on, need to address this reality and decide what must be done both to prevent North Korea from becoming an even more capable nuclear power and compel the Pyongyang regime to abandon its nuclear weapons program."

"No matter whether a Democratic or Republican administration is inaugurated, a new Cold War structure will continue in the international system," Yoon Seong-won, an international studies professor at Hanyang University, said. "If Harris is elected, it is highly likely that major security issues, including the Korean Peninsula, will take the form of 'Biden 2.0,' but if the Trump administration takes office, uncertainty may further increase."

BY MICHAEL LEE, SEO JI-EUN, LIM JEONG-WON, SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]