Allies for 67 Years, U.S. and South Korea Split Over North Korea

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.

”South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter.

The tone of Mr. Trump’s statements stunned officials here and underscored what unlikely partners he and Mr. Moon are, at a time when their countries’ 67-year-old military alliance faces an ever-more-dangerous regime in Pyongyang.

Mr. Moon, who was elected in May promising to seek dialogue with North Korea, fired back at Mr. Trump, insisting that the crisis be resolved peacefully.

”We can never tolerate another catastrophic war on this land,” his office said in a statement Sunday evening. “We will not give up our goal of working together with allies to seek a peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

Mr. Moon has supported Mr. Trump’s push for tougher sanctions against North Korea, and in a call on Monday, their first since the nuclear test on Sunday, the two leaders agreed to lift the weight limit on South Korean conventional warheads, Park Soo-hyun, a spokesman for Mr. Moon, said. Removing the 500-kilogram restriction, part of a treaty with the United States aimed at preventing a regional arms race, could give the South greater power to strike the North in the event of military conflict.

Mr. Moon and Mr. Trump also agreed to “push for maximum pressure and sanctions against North Korea” at the United Nations Security Council, Mr. Park said.

But Mr. Moon has argued that sanctions and pressure alone have failed to stop the North’s advances in nuclear and missile technology. And while Mr. Trump has threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” Mr. Moon has said there must be a peaceful solution because South Koreans, not Americans, would bear the brunt of war.

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