Hegseth to visit DMZ, meet Lee during upcoming trip to S. Korea: senior official

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a roundtable on criminal cartels with U.S. President Donald Trump in the State Dining Room of the White House, Oct. 23, in Washington. AP-Yonhap

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas and meet with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during his visit to the Asian country next week, a senior U.S. defense official said Tuesday.

Hegseth is set to kick off a two-day visit to South Korea next Monday in his first trip to the Asian country since taking office early this year. Korea is the last leg of his Asia swing that includes stops in Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Upon arrival in Korea, the secretary, along with Seoul's Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back, plans to visit the Joint Security Area (JSA) inside the DMZ and have a chance to meet Korean and American troops stationed at the DMZ, the official said during a briefing to the press traveling with Hegseth.

It will mark the first joint visit to the JSA by the allies' defense chiefs since October 2017, when then Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo and then U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis visited the area.

The centerpiece of his visit to South Korea is the two countries' annual defense dialogue, called the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), slated to take place at the defense ministry in Seoul on Nov. 4, the official said. He also plans to have a meeting with Lee while in Seoul.

"These discussions will further advance consultations on alliance modernization, including defense spending, and the ROK assuming the primary responsibility for the alliance's conventional defense against North Korea," the official said. ROK is short for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

After the SCM, the secretary and Ahn will announce an expansion of defense industrial cooperation, the official said. He did not elaborate.

Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back / Yonhap

During the defense talks, the two sides are expected to discuss a range of pending issues, including Seoul's push to retake wartime operational control and Washington's call for the Asian ally to increase defense spending and take on a greater burden for regional security as they seek to "modernize" their decades-old alliance.

During his stay in Korea, he will also visit Camp Humphreys, a sprawling U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, to thank service members and families, according to him.

Hegseth's trip to Asia will come as the Pentagon is redoubling calls for Indo-Pacific allies to contribute more to "collective defense" in the midst of an intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry over maritime security, trade and technological leadership, to name a few.

The official said that threats from China will be a "major" theme through all his engagements during the trip.

"The department continues to prioritize deterring China," he said. "The secretary asked the department to focus on reestablishing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. We very much remain focused on that."

In Tokyo on Wednesday, Hegseth plans to have a bilateral meeting with new Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi to discuss efforts to increase defense capabilities, upgrade the two countries' respective command and control frameworks and improve bilateral training and exercises, according to the official.

In Kuala Lumpur, the secretary plans to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers' Meeting-Plus, known as ADMM-Plus, a premier regional defense forum, and join a series of bilateral and multilateral meetings with his counterparts from countries including Malaysia, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia.

Arriving in Hanoi on Sunday, Hegseth will meet Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang. He also plans to meet other senior leaders in Vietnam.

"The secretary will focus on the steps the department is taking to reestablish deterrence in the region by strengthening our posture, having combat credible force posture forward, and working with our allies and partners to bolster their defense capabilities," the official said.

"He will emphasize the importance of our allies increasing their contributions to our collective defense."