President Joe Biden and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will debut a more sober approach to North Korea during Moon’s working visit to the White House this week after four years of former President Donald Trump.
North Korea and regional security will top Biden’s and Moon’s agenda on Friday, the president’s second slate of in-person bilateral meetings since Inauguration Day, according to senior administration officials. The pair and their aides will discuss technology, health, and climate issues, too, and Moon will be the first foreign leader to take part in a Medal of Honor ceremony.
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Moon’s visit comes after the White House completed its North Korea policy review. The administration’s overarching aim for the “iron-clad” relationship remains the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, officials said.
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“This objective or policy will not focus on achieving a grand bargain, nor will it rely on strategic patience. Our policy calls for a calibrated, practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with the DPRK to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States, our allies, and our deployed forces,” one source said, using the abbreviation for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
They added, “We intend to build on the Singapore agreement but also other agreements made by previous administrations.”
The official declined to specify whether the U.S. and South Korea were ready to provide sanctions relief for denuclearization or would sign an end of war declaration.
“We’ve tried to design it to be flexible,” the source said of the White House’s strategy and tactics. “We understand where previous efforts in the past have had difficulties, and we’re determined to try to learn from those past efforts to give ourselves the best chance of diplomatic success.”
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo will hold talks with her counterpart, South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Sung Yun-mo, and a roundtable of South Korean CEOs as well. Many of the CEOs have business in technology, batteries, semiconductors, and 5G telecommunications, officials said.
Biden has prioritized Asia over the Middle East since his swearing-in, a sharp departure from Trump’s foreign policy. Biden’s first in-person bilateral meeting was last month with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, though his first foreign trip in June is to the United Kingdom and Europe.
Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have increased as the rogue nation continues to invest in its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, which it claimed in 2017 could reach the U.S. North Korea even issued a nuclear warning in March as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to South Korea and Japan.
U.S. relations with North Korea improved at first under Trump, with the former president meeting with Kim Jong Un twice, once in 2018 in Singapore and a year later in Vietnam. But the relationship soured again after the two failed to agree on nuclear disarmament or sanctions, cutting their Vietnamese summit short.
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Moon arrived in Washington Wednesday afternoon.
