'Good start but no breakthroughs'

President advised not to be ‘good cop’ for North Korea

By Kim Jae-kyoung

President Moon Jae-in should have his administration develop strategies to address substantive issues from the Korea-U.S. summit as soon as possible, according to American experts on Korea.

They said the summit between Moon and U.S. President Donald Trump could be considered a “win-win” in that the two leaders developed rapport, but Seoul should not be too excited about the joint statement itself.

“I think the focus of the summit outcome shouldn't rely heavily only on the joint statement,” Tara O, an adjunct fellow at the Washington-based Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told The Korea Times.

In her view, the fact that it took seven hours to produce the statement after the Trump-Moon press conference reflects that there were a lot of disagreements.

“They had to water it down to only the points they can agree on and even those points were probably contentious,” she said. “The meaning of a statement in one language not quite equals the meaning in another language.”

“What was said at the press conference showed a lot of gaps in their perspectives, priorities, and approaches. I think that's more telling of where this is going,” she added.

The experts shared the view that there were no great breakthroughs but it was a good start to what will be a close, intricate relationship between Trump and Moon.

They believe that from the Korea’s perspective, difficult issues on North Korea were particularly well addressed.

“I think President Moon should be pleased. He got assurances on the alliance and some room to maneuver on North-South relations,” said Stephan Haggard,

director of the Korea-Pacific Program at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.

According to the experts, one of the biggest outcomes from the summit for South Korea was its gaining of ground to take a leadership role in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue.

However, they said that Seoul should be careful about only being a “good cop” in handling the reclusive country.

“Moon wants Korea to take more of a leadership role in dealing with North Korea, and Trump seems OK with that,” said William Brown, adjunct professor at Georgetown School of Foreign Service.

“I think though that both sides have to be careful not to cast Seoul in the role of the good cop in dealing with Pyongyang and the U.S., or Trump, as the bad cop,” he added.

The retired U.S. government official, who attended Moon's speech at an event hosted by CSIS, Friday, pointed out that it is Trump’s mentality to rail against and drive a wedge between the Korean and American public.

“I have a sense that North Korea is running into financial difficulties, as a result of heavier Chinese trade sanctions, and will be looking for donations in return for engagement,” he said.

“Hopefully, we can remain unified in our resistance to bailing Pyongyang out, yet again, instead offering them a more positive way ahead that includes reforming their system and ending their nukes.”

Trump’s idea of FTA ‘false’

Haggard, who also serves as visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, stressed that the first step should be to send an envoy.

“So far, the North has been pressing President Moon to conform with their priorities, blocking opportunities for cooperation and restating old positions on North-South relations that do not reflect the new nuclear reality,” he said.

“The President is right to emphasize that South Korea has a place at the negotiating table on nuclear weapons and whatever small trust-building measures are taken at the outset need to be linked to a broader improvement of relations on the peninsula.”

Regarding economic issues, such as cost-sharing arrangements for the U.S. troops and the Korea-U.S free trade agreement (KORUS FTA), the experts called on Moon to develop more practical strategies to achieve tangible results.

Haggard said that burden-sharing in the alliance might be seen as an issue of fairness, but in the larger picture the amounts of money involved are not huge.

“I think Korea needs to figure out what it wants from the burden-sharing negotiations. If it is paying more, what is it getting in return?” he said.

“We already knew that trade issues would come up, but the idea that Trump can rip up the KORUS FTA is clearly false,” he added.

He explained that there are provisions that allow for renegotiation of the agreement, but the agreement was ratified by the U.S. Congress and Trump will have to come back for approval on whatever he chooses to do, saying, “There is a lot of support for the agreement in Congress.”