Biden highlights trilateral partnership with South Korea and Japan as key policy achievement
Published: 14 Jan. 2025, 10:40
![President Joe Biden, right, and his son Hunter Biden arrive at Fort McNair, Sunday, June 25, 2023, in Washington. [AP]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/01/14/53ae8cbd-b06c-407d-8365-a617d79fb724.jpg)
President Joe Biden, right, and his son Hunter Biden arrive at Fort McNair, Sunday, June 25, 2023, in Washington. [AP]
U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday underscored the forging of the trilateral partnership between South Korea, the United States and Japan as a feat of his administration's policy drive to reinvigorate America's alliances and partnerships to confront shared challenges.
During an address on his foreign policy record, Biden also highlighted the need to deter North Korea, putting it on a list of "serious challenges" America must continue to handle, as he is set to hand over the presidential baton to incoming President Donald Trump on Jan. 20.
"We made partnerships stronger and created new partnerships to challenge China's aggressive behavior and to rebalance power in the region," Biden said during the address at the State Department.
"We did it — what few felt was possible to build the first-ever trilateral partnership between the United States, Japan and South Korea, then another among the United States, Japan and the Philippines, drawing close to our Pacific allies to defend our shared security and prosperity," he added.
The Biden administration has seen a deepening of the United States' three-way cooperation with South Korea and Japan whose historical grievances had gotten in the way of their security cooperation despite the shared challenge from North Korea.
The Camp David summit, the first-ever stand-alone trilateral summit among the countries in August 2023, was a culmination of three-way cooperation as it produced a series of landmark agreements, including the "Commitment to Consult" each other in the event of a shared threat.
Since the summit, the three sides have launched a system for the real-time sharing of North Korean ballistic missile warning data, created a trilateral military exercise, named "Freedom Edge," and installed a trilateral secretariat to institutionalize their cooperation.
However, it remains uncertain whether the incoming U.S. administration would commit itself to further developing the three-way partnership under Trump's America First credo, which some critics argue smacks of isolationism.
Biden highlighted the importance of leveraging alliances and partnerships rather than "going it alone."
"Throughout my career, the world has undergone tremendous change, but certain things have always held true: At our best, America leads not only by the example of our power, but the power of our example," he said.
"[Over] the past four years, we've used that power not to go it alone, but instead, to bring countries together to increase shared security and prosperity, to stand up to aggression, to solve problems through diplomacy wherever possible."
The outgoing president also touched on security challenges that the United States has to deal with in Ukraine, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
"[We] must deter North Korea as they rattle their saber and draw closer to Russia," he said of those challenges.
But he claimed that his administration is leaving the next government with a "very strong hand to play."
"We are leaving them an America [with] more friends and strong alliances whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure; an America that once again is leading, uniting countries, setting the agenda, bringing others together behind our plans and visions," he said.
Yonhap
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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