After months of political turmoil in South Korea, Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung was elected as president in a snap election held June 3. Elections came two years early after the impeachment of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was removed by South Korea’s top court in April after being impeached for his short-lived imposition of martial law. An iron-fisted labor lawyer and former factory worker, Lee grounds his politics in survival and security. Driven by his protectionist instinct, Lee plans on a “pragmatic diplomacy” that prioritizes national interests over ideology—a posture that may help him navigate U.S. President Donald Trump’s transactional world order.
A vocal critic of Yoon’s “values-based diplomacy,” which hinged on partnering with Western liberal democracies to fight autocracies, Lee plans to recalibrate South Korea’s foreign policy to pursue economic and security gains over ideological alliances. His pragmatism marks a shift from his liberal predecessors, who held principled commitments to autonomy from U.S. hegemony, historical redress with Japan, and reunification with North Korea. While inheriting their norms and values, Lee is trying to forge a more adaptive—and mercurial—statecraft to steer a divided South Korea through intensifying geopolitical headwinds.
South Korea faces formidable foreign-policy challenges, which have been left in limbo since Yoon’s impeachment in December. Casting himself as a champion of liberal democratic norms, Yoon aligned closely with Washington and set aside colonial-era hostilities with Japan to forge a trilateral partnership with the United States and Japan that was aimed at countering the military and economic rise of China and North Korea.
Yoon’s hard-line approach on North Korea, calling it Seoul’s “main enemy” and floating the prospect of nuclear armament, strained relations with Pyongyang during his short time in office. In October, North Korea abandoned its long-held policy of supporting reunification with South Korea, designating its neighbor as a “hostile state” in a revision of its own constitution. Over the past year, North Korea has escalated threats to use its expanding nuclear arsenal against South Korea and has forged a military alliance with Russia, including a landmark mutual defense treaty.
Meanwhile, Trump has been asking South Korea to pay more for U.S. military troops based on its soil—the Wall Street Journal reported in May that he is even considering withdrawing the U.S. presence altogether—while imposing steep tariffs on steel, autos, and other goods that are central to South Korea’s export-driven economy. In 2018, former liberal President Moon Jae-in signed a bilateral trade deal with Trump that exempted South Korea from steel tariffs in exchange for capping its steel exports to the United States. Trump is also taking an increasingly hawkish approach toward China, South Korea’s largest trading partner, and is pushing South Korea to align closely with U.S. priorities across economic, technological, and security domains.
In his inaugural address at the National Assembly on June 4, Lee articulated his vision for weathering global upheaval. “Through pragmatic diplomacy, we will turn the crisis posed by the major shift in global economic and security landscapes into an opportunity to maximize our national interests,” he said.
Once a firebrand critic of American dominance, Lee reaffirmed his commitment to the U.S.-South Korea alliance, emphasizing it as the bedrock of South Korean diplomacy. He also pledged to solidify trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan, breaking from the progressive tradition of keeping Tokyo at arm’s length. Defying early concerns that he would unravel the trilateral alliance forged under Yoon and former U.S. President Joe Biden, Lee stated in a press conference last month that he will address thorny historical and territorial disputes with Japan separately from matters of security and trade.
Still, as a staunch pragmatist, Lee is unlikely to mirror the demagogic loyalty that Yoon showed to Washington. His alignment with Washington stems not from an admiration for Western values, but from a calculated pursuit of national interest.
“We have a special relationship with the United States as allies, and we must make good use of it,” Lee said in a YouTube interview in February. “But we should not be dragged along unilaterally.”
While supporting a strong security alliance with the United States, Lee has also emphasized the need to repair strained ties with China to foster economic growth and maintain regional security. Since reviving South Korea’s faltering economy amid domestic political fractures is central to his agenda, fostering a partnership with China is particularly important.
“The South Korea-U.S. alliance is important and must continue to expand and develop,” Lee said in a presidential debate last month. But, he added, “That doesn’t mean we should rely on it entirely. We don’t need to completely exclude or be hostile toward China and Russia. Diplomacy must always be centered on national interests.”
But an escalating U.S.-China rivalry may not allow Lee to delicately balance between Washington and Beijing.
“[W]e know that many countries are tempted by the idea of seeking both economic cooperation with China and defense cooperation with the United States,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a speech given at a security forum in Singapore on May 31. But “economic dependence on China,” he warned, “only deepens their malign influence and complicates our defense decision space during times of tension.”
Without a concrete agenda, Lee’s balancing act between the two superpowers risks devolving into strategic ambiguity. South Korea’s push for greater autonomy within its alliance with the United States is increasingly constrained by China’s economic leverage and Trump’s tightening grip on tariffs and troops. As Washington and Beijing pressure South Korea to take a side, Lee may struggle to maintain flexibility without appearing unreliable or inconsistent.
Breaking from Yoon’s isolationist policy, Lee seeks to revive diplomatic engagement with North Korea, echoing the legacy of his liberal predecessors with a stronger emphasis on deterrence. In his inaugural address, he pledged to “open channels for communication with North Korea and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula through talks and cooperation.” At the same time, he vowed to counter North Korean nuclear threats with “strong deterrence” grounded in the South Korea-U.S. military alliance.
On the campaign trail, he promised to reinstate the Inter-Korean Military Agreement—a pact that was signed by Moon and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un to ease military tensions but later suspended by Yoon—and to bolster South Korea’s ballistic missile capabilities and defense systems.
Still, Lee has tempered expectations for dialogue with North Korea, acknowledging that it would be “very difficult” to arrange a summit with Kim anytime soon. Instead, he has expressed support for Trump to resume nuclear diplomacy with Kim. A surprising partnership between Lee and Trump would breathe new life into stalled nuclear talks and reshape Korea’s diplomatic landscape.
Lee could draw inspiration from Moon, who deftly and persistently maneuvered Trump into a historic summit with Kim in Singapore in 2018, which culminated in North Korea’s commitment to denuclearization. While their second summit in Hanoi collapsed without a deal, as Trump and Kim found that their terms on denuclearization remained too far apart for a compromise, Moon engineered the broader rapprochement that might have persuaded North Korea to shut down its nuclear facility. If Lee can better channel Trump’s erratic diplomacy, then his methodical, detail-oriented approach could lend substance to Trump’s showmanship.
But much like his electorate, Lee does not share the ethnonationalist zeal that defined his liberal predecessors—including Moon, a human rights lawyer whose parents fled North Korea during the Korean War and who devoted his political career to pursuing reconciliation on the divided peninsula. As a generational shift in South Korea’s national identity has weakened support for reunification, Lee lacks the political will to embark on the dogged diplomacy that Moon pursued to restore ties with North Korea. While reviving dialogue with Pyongyang requires much groundwork from Seoul, whether Lee can reconcile his pragmatic posture with the demands of proactive engagement remains to be seen.
While Lee must join hands with Trump to contain North Korea’s growing nuclear ambitions, he will also have to negotiate with him on a host of contentious issues. Trump has made clear that he does not intend to separate trade from security during negotiations, complicating Lee’s diplomatic calculus. But Lee has said that he’s ready to do what it takes.
“I will crawl between his legs if necessary, if that’s what I have to do for my people,” Lee said in a radio interview shortly before the election. “But I am not a pushover, either,” he said. “South Korea also has quite a few cards to play in give-and-take negotiations.”
Despite having starkly different political values, Lee shares a surprisingly similar protectionist outlook with Trump. In fact, Lee openly admires Trump’s nationalism and unabashedly opportunistic dealmaking.
“Trump would do anything to defend America’s interests, even if that means having a tariff war with allies or engaging with an adversary to end the war in Ukraine,” Lee said in a Supreme Council meeting in February, adding, “It’s something we should learn from.” Their shared approach could just easily breed friction as it fosters cooperation.
Lee may try to pander to Trump by aligning South Korea’s agenda closely with U.S. priorities. That could take the form of trade deals in shipbuilding and technology, stoking Trump’s ego with talk of potentially nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize and pitching South Korea as a linchpin in Washington’s regional security architecture. Lee has been seeking to buy more time for trade talks, hoping to glean leverage by observing how Japan and China handle their negotiations.
Lee’s pragmatism may help him navigate an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape. But diplomacy also requires a vision, not just deals. Incorporating progressive ideals into foreign policy may prove a hard task in the age of Trump. Lee may need a clear ideological compass to guide his pragmatism.
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