Korea’s impending identity crisis from Trump 2.0
Published: 25 Nov. 2024, 20:02
Jaung Hoon
The author is an emeritus professor at Chung-Ang University and a columnist for the JoongAng Ilbo.
Although half-expected, the reckoning with Trump 2.0 came bitingly for Korea. The won’s depreciation accelerated in the week following the U.S. presidential election results, with the U.S. dollar hitting as high as 1,409 against the won. Murky prospects on key exports, including chips, and the potential toll on corporate performance caused a stock rout.
Worldwide strategists have pinned former U.S. president Donald Trump’s re-election as the biggest global risk in 2024. European bankers, Japanese automakers and Middle East oil producers have all studied the repercussions of Trump’s return to the White House. South Korea and Taiwan were deemed to bear the hardest blow as the two countries rely heavily on external trade, particularly with the United States, and stand as geopolitical hotbeds.
The so-called Trump risk has posed a locus of concern in the vulnerable country and sparked deliberations on readiness and response measures. Numerous reports and newspaper columns dissected the second Trump administration’s policies on tariffs, energy, defense cost-sharing and North Korean nuclear threats.
I respect the practical approach. But there are deeper and controvertible issues that cannot be resolved simply through practical attention to policies. We may find ourselves at a loss and come to question our identity and our goals after ardently dancing to the tunes of Trump’s whims, avarice and “Make American Great Again” (MAGA) tenet. Korea Inc. needs to understand U.S. policies to respond to sweeping changes in the trade environment, and I’m confident they will weather the challenges well. But it is a different matter for the theaters of politics — and international politics — where values, interests, power, ethics and national interests are at play.
We must heed two big threats that can cause an identity crisis. The first is the external policy of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration that could be shaken. The president has been an eager supporter of values-based diplomacy led by U.S. President Joe Biden. Yoon would have to answer for the identity crisis from a shift to a relationship catering to America First and quid-pro-quo demands under Trump 2.0.
Yoon’s aides would have readied contingency measures against Trump’s re-election — such as an apparent increase in the cost of hosting U.S. troops and a possible rollback or change in the role of the U.S. forces in Korea should negotiations not go well — and against the dangerous scenario of a two-way deal-making scenario between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Such matters are certainly important, but not the real problem. Over the past two and half years, President Yoon’s foreign policies have been anchored on the banner of an alliance of liberal values. The multi-billion-dollar investments in America and rapprochements toward Japan were condoned at home despite some disgruntlements under the banner.
However, giving in to the abrupt change from a values-based alliance to a give-and-take relationship for Korea’s “survival strategy” could pose a considerable burden for President Yoon. He faces the exacting work of persuading the people over Trump’s demand for $10 billion annually in return for U.S. military presence in a country Trump referred to as a “money machine.”
Beyond the financial issues lies a more fundamental problem. Trump’s transactional diplomacy stems from his novel worldview shaped by decades of doing business in the harsh and corrupt real estate industry of New York in the 1970s and 80s — and from power worship and a strict division between the strong and the weak. How will President Yoon explain to voters his diplomatic choices to meet the Trumpian worldview for the sake of economic security and deterrence against North Korean threats? Who really can address the confusion and identity crisis when a bilateral relationship abruptly pivots from values to transactions?
The second threat to the identity crisis can arise from the way some in the Korean conservative and progressive fronts try to exploit Trump’s return for their own political gains. Some in the conservative camp have fervently welcome Trump’s comeback. They regard him as a right-wing strongman who triumphed in the cultural war with America’s progressive left. But those who try to find comforts in Trump for defeating the Democrats immersed in political correctness can’t be deemed healthy conservatives.
Trump’s return also makes some progressives in Korea happy. They think that Trumpism defying liberal values and establishments means the twilight of the Pax Americana order. But their display of antiliberal instincts capitalizing on the upheavals in the United States cannot be honest.
In short, Trump’s comeback in four years can expose various weaknesses in Korean identity. Just think of the fragility of Korea’s international commitment to a values-based alliance and the shoddiness of the battle between conservatives and liberals being waged through the distorted mirror of Trump. We must pause and let our souls catch up with our body before it’s too late.
Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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