SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo next week before flying to Washington for a summit with President Donald Trump, underscoring how Trump’s push to reset global trade is drawing the often-feuding neighbors closer. Lee’s two-day visit to Japan Aug. 23–24 will be an opportunity to deepen personal ties with Ishiba and put bilateral relations on firmer ground. Their talks will center on strengthening trilateral cooperation with Washington, promoting “regional peace and stability,” and addressing other international issues, presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said Wednesday.
Their meeting will come weeks after South Korea and Japan secured trade deals with Washington that shielded their trade-dependent economies from Trump’s highest tariffs. The separate agreements negotiated their rates of reciprocal duties down to 15% from the originally proposed 25%, but only after pledging hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments.
Lee and Ishiba previously met on the sidelines of the June G7 meetings in Canada, where they called for building a future-oriented relationship and agreed to cooperate closely on various issues including trade and countering North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Relations between the two U.S. allies often have been strained in recent years over grievances stemming from Japan’s brutal colonization of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II.
South Korea’s previous conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, made active efforts to repair ties with Tokyo, including a major compromise on compensation issues related to Korean victims of Japanese wartime slavery, aiming to bolster trilateral security cooperation with Washington against North Korean threats.
But Yoon’s presidency was cut short by his brief imposition of martial law in December, which led to his ouster and imprisonment, leaving uncertainty over Seoul-Tokyo relations under Lee, who has long accused Japan of clinging to its imperialist past and hindering cooperation.
Since taking office in June after winning the early presidential election, Lee has avoided thorny remarks about Japan, instead promoting pragmatism in foreign policy and pledging to strengthen Seoul’s alliance with Washington and trilateral cooperation with Tokyo.
There also have been calls in South Korea to boost collaboration with Japan in responding to Donald Trump, who has unsettled allies and partners with tariff hikes and demands they reduce reliance on the U.S. while paying more for their own defense.
Following his meeting with Ishiba, Lee will travel to Washington for an Aug. 25 summit with Trump, which his office said will focus on trade and defense cooperation.
His meeting with Trump comes with concerns in Seoul that the Trump administration could shake up the decades-old alliance by demanding higher payments for the U.S. troop presence in South Korea and possibly move to reduce it as Washington shifts more focus on China.
