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Trump's misleading tweets amplify N. Korea woes

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By Yi Whan-woo

U.S. President Donald Trump's misleading tweets about South Korea are becoming a major source of concern here when a unified voice is needed more than ever between the allies in response to North Korea's threats.

Trump recently complained on Twitter of the South's "talks of appeasement" with the North and threatened to pull out from a bilateral free trade deal.

This raised concerns here that he may be trying to capitalize on security issues as leverage in fulfilling his economic election promises.

Some analysts warned Tuesday that Trump could mislead South Korean policymakers. Whenever he previously brought up cost-related issues on the U.S. missile defense system and American troops here, analysts here questioned whether Trump was trying to gain an advantage in revising the Korea-U.S free trade agreement (KORUS FTA).

On Sunday, Trump denounced Pyongyang for being "hostile and dangerous" in response to its sixth nuclear test.

He also pointed a finger at Seoul, saying, "South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!"

Trump apparently took a jab at President Moon Jae-in who has consistently pushed for the need for dialogue for a resolution to the heightening tension on the Korean Peninsula.

In another confusing statement released Monday, the White House said Trump approved of South Korea purchasing weapons worth "many billions of dollars" during a telephone conservation with Moon to discuss North Korea.

Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Park Soo-hyun explained that the U.S. appeared to be referring to the two allies earlier discussions on improving Seoul's own defense capabilities.

The criticism of Moon came after a Washington Post report Sunday that Trump asked his advisers to prepare to withdraw from the KORUS-FTA. He called it a "job-killing" deal during his election campaign in an apparent bid to woo supporters from the Rust Belt.

"Trump has no respect for the leader of a U.S. ally," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies. "It does not help at all in consolidating the alliance, especially at a time when North Korea is making fast advances in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs."

Yang said Trump lacks "philosophy and principles," claiming that Moon has been cooperative with Trump's North Korea policy of "maximum pressure and engagement."

"Also, if Trump was to accuse Moon of appeasement with North Korea, he should have picked on James Mattis and Rex Tillerson as well because they underscored diplomatic methods. Such methods can be viewed as soft and mild depending on the circumstances," he said.

To Trump, the alliance is "merely a wrapping paper" in his path to maximize trade, business and other U.S. national interests, according to Yang.

Kwak Jin-o, a senior researcher at the Northeast Asian History Foundation, said the businessman-turned-president is making it difficult for Seoul to separate security and economic issues in dealing with Washington.

"I believe Trump's attention was solely on the economy when he mentioned withdrawing from the KORUS-FTA," he said. "It is right for us to separate it from regional security. But there is a growing confusion here in such an attempt and this is why our government needs to get in closer touch with Trump's aides."

Jonathan Pollack, a leading East Asia policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, said Trump's inflammatory remarks and tweets had been "unforeseen and amounted to an extremely risky course of action."

"Words like the ones that Trump used have an inherent possibility of being misconstrued. There may be actions being taken by others that really were not somehow the intended purpose."

In a New York Times interview, Ely Ratner, a top national security official in the Barack Obama administration, accused Trump of "coming out swinging at" South Korea and China rather than trying to build "support and coordination"

"It just looks so haphazard," he said.

Yi Whan-woo yistory@koreatimes.co.kr


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