South Korea-U.S. Partnership Faces Strains as North Korea Raises Threat
SEOUL, South Korea — For seven decades, the United States and South Korea have been the closest of allies. Their soldiers have served together not just on the Korean Peninsula but in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. And under America’s protective umbrella, the South Korean economy has soared.
Now, as North Korea carries out a series of provocative missile and nuclear bomb tests, that alliance is straining at a time when both nations may need it more than ever.
President Trump issued a blast of antagonistic comments in the last few days that have made South Koreans doubt that they can take the alliance for granted any longer.
On Twitter on Thursday, he declared that “talking is not the answer!” in dealing with North Korea, casting aside the push by the new South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, to hold talks with the North. On Saturday, he threatened to withdraw the United States from a five-year-old free trade agreement with South Korea over what he considers its unfair protectionist policies. And on Sunday, after North Korea detonated its most powerful nuclear device yet, he essentially called the South Koreans appeasers.
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