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South Korea Relations with the United States
South Korea's relations with the United States have been most
extensive and intense since 1948. This relation was perhaps
inevitable because South Korea was primarily established by the
United States and was saved from a total collapse in the course
of the Korean War (1950-53) by the United States-initiated,
United Nations-sponsored rescue operation. During the subsequent
four decades, however, Seoul came of age economically,
politically, and even militarily and was no longer as
economically or militarily dependent on the United States.
Instead, by the 1990s it was seeking to establish a partnership
for progress. The Seoul-Washington relationship in this
transition was increasingly subject to severe strains.
Trade had become a serious source of friction between the two
countries. In 1989 the United States was South Korea's largest
and most important trading partner and South Korea was the
seventh-largest market for United States goods and the secondlargest market for its agricultural products. Friction, however,
had been caused in the late 1980s by South Korea's trade surplus.
Correcting and eliminating this trade imbalance became the center
of economic controversy between Seoul and Washington. Although
Seoul gave in to Washington's demands to avoid being designated
as a "priority foreign country" (PFC) under the United States
"Super 301" provisions of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness
Act of 1988 economic policymakers in Seoul greatly resented this
unilateral economic threat. They also feared that the PFC
designation would fuel anti-Americanism throughout South Korea.
Security was another source of strain. Some policymakers in
Seoul and Washington maintained that United States forces should
remain in South Korea as long as Seoul wanted and needed them.
Not only did 94 percent of South Koreans support the presence of
United States forces, but even the vocal opposition parties
favored a continued United States military presence in South
Korea. Stability in the peninsula, they argued, had been
maintained because strong Seoul-Washington military cooperation
deterred further aggression.
Other policymakers, however, felt that United States troops
should gradually be leaving South Korea. They argued that South
Korea in the late 1980s was more economically, militarily, and
politically capable of coping with North Korea. Moreover, they
doubted that P'yongyang could contemplate another military
action, given its acrimonious relationships with Moscow and
Beijing. In Washington, meanwhile, an increasing number of United
States policymakers advocated gradual troop withdrawal for
budgetary reasons. The consultations on restructuring the
Washington-Seoul security relationship held during Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney's February 1990 visit to South Korea marked
the beginning of the change in status of United States forces--
from a leading to a supporting role in South Korea's defense. In
addition, Seoul was asked to increase substantially its
contribution to defense costs. Although the precise amount of
savings would be difficult to measure, the United States would
likely save at least US$2 billion to US$3 billion annually if
defense costs were restructured as the United States wished.
Furthermore, disengagement would avoid the potential for American
entanglement in complicated internal South Korean politics. In
short, it was suggested that it was time for Seoul to be treated
as an independent entity responsible for its own security.
Politics also strained relations between Seoul and
Washington. The increasingly sensitive South Korean nationalism
was faced with what Seoul viewed as a hardened Washington. The
United States role in the May 1980 Kwangju uprising was the
single most pressing South Korean political issue of the 1980s.
Even after a decade, Kwangju citizens and other Koreans still
blamed the United States for its perceived involvement in the
bloody uprising.
Washington's policymakers applauded Nordpolitik as a
necessary adjustment of the relationship between Seoul and
Moscow. However, the South Korean press contributed to a
distorted zero-sum notion of the situation--if ties with the
Soviet Union improve, then it must cause strains in the
relationship with the United States. In his February 1989 speech
to the South Korean National Assembly, President George Bush
defined continuity and change as the guideposts in
Seoul-Washington relations.
Data as of June 1990
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