MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For more on what seems to be the Trump administration's shifting foreign policy focus, I'm joined now by Jung H. Pak. She was deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the Biden administration. She's currently a distinguished fellow at the Center for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy at Vrije University in Belgium. Welcome. Thanks so much for joining us once again.
JUNG H PAK: Hi there, Michel. How are you?
MARTIN: Good. So as we just heard, President Trump is telling the Pentagon to scale back its participation in joint military drills with South Korea. How would you expect the leaders of South Korea and other Asian nations, for that matter, to view this now?
PAK: Michel, I think there's a good part, which is maybe there's movement on the North Korea side, and that President Trump has elicited some sort of response or reaction from Kim Jong Un and Kim might be willing to meet. Now, recall that there hasn't been very much or any diplomacy since 2019, since the summit failed. So any effort to draw out North Korea is good. The bad is that it's at a great cost.
President Trump and the administration clearly did not talk with the allies, especially South Korea, on this, on the exercises. At the same time, President Trump has derided South Korea for not doing enough for its own defense or on helping on Iran. And Hal Brands is right. As you mentioned in the previous segment, North Korea is different now. It has Russia and China. It has more capabilities. It has learned so much from sending its men and material into Ukraine to help Russia. So this is a North Korea that doesn't really see that the U.S. has much to offer.
MARTIN: So I'm not sure if you feel sort of qualified to assess the administration's motivations. But I am curious if you think - how much of this is about Trump wanting to restart talks with North Korea? And how much of this is about wanting to send a signal to South Korea because he's mad about their position on the Iran war?
PAK: Yeah, I think it's both. One, President Trump has always had this - you know, had favorable things to say about Kim Jong Un. It's clear that the two men got along. There were so-called love letters that were exchanged during the first administration and beyond. So I think there is that part of it and that Kim thinks that he could make some progress with North Korea. Second, is that it's not new for President Trump to continue to poke South Korea on what more it can do for its own defense. So I think it's both.
MARTIN: Do you think that this points to a broader shift in focus by the Trump administration? I mean, also thinking about the fact that the USS George Washington is heading to the Middle East, leaving the Pacific without an active-duty U.S. aircraft carrier. So do you think this is something - a broader pivot, as it were?
PAK: You know, I think - I don't necessarily think it's a broader pivot. But the Indo-Pacific has had a very rough year-plus with the one-two punch. The tariffs that were on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again and on again that has had the region scrambling. And then the Iran war, which has really had a deep impact on energy and food security in the region, about U.S. credibility and commitment to the defense of this region. And we all have to remember that Indo-Pacific, Asia, is 60% of global GDP. There are five treaty allies in the region and 60% of the world's population. So the Indo-Pacific is a critically important area. And it's a region that even the Trump administration has asserted that it is an important battleground.
MARTIN: So - but what are the global implications for security if the U.S. no longer seems to regard the Pacific as a security priority?
PAK: They're really long. There's going to be a long tale to this, that with the USS George Washington moving out of Asia, into the Middle East, in and of itself is important. But when you put it into the context of the tariffs, President Trump's comments about allies and the way the administration has treated allies and partners, the diversion of resources from Indo-Pacific to the Middle East - that when you put it into a bigger perspective and zoom out, it looks like the U.S. is not putting as much energy and focus into the Indo-Pacific. It's problematic because this is a region that has highly complicated security problems, including North Korea with its more sophisticated nuclear weapons program, the fact that China, Russia and North Korea and Iran are doing more things together in the security, economic and political space, the South China Sea, which has been a potential flashpoint. So given that, if there is any perception of prolonged U.S. attention away from the region, and there is, that that could influence our adversaries to take action and use this opportunity.
MARTIN: That's Jung H. Pak, former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the Biden administration. Thanks so much for joining us.
PAK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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