South Korean President to Meet with Japanese Leader This Month

• Lee Jae-myung will meet with Shigeru Ishiba before the summit with Donald Trump.
• They will discuss strengthening cooperation between the USA, Korea, and Japan.
• Relations between Korea and Japan remain strained.

President of South Korea Lee Jae-myung will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo on September 23-24 before traveling to Washington for a summit with President Donald Trump. This meeting marks the beginning of a renewed effort to improve relations between the two countries against the backdrop of Trump’s global trade changes.

During the bilateral visit, Lee intends to strengthen personal ties with Ishiba and discuss issues related to trilateral cooperation with Washington, regional stability, and other international matters, according to a statement from President Kang Yu-jong.

The meeting will take place a few weeks after South Korea and Japan signed trade agreements with the USA, which protect their economies from Trump’s highest tariffs. These agreements reduced reciprocal tariff rates to 15% from the initial imposed 25% after the commitment to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the USA.

Lee and Ishiba previously met at the G7 summit in Canada, where they committed to building relations oriented towards the future, and agreed to closely cooperate on trade and the issue of North Korea's nuclear program.

Relations between the two US allies have been strained in recent years due to disputes related to Japan's colonization of Korea until the end of World War II. The previous conservative president of South Korea Yoon Suk-yeol actively took steps to improve relations with Tokyo, including significant compromises on compensation for Korean victims of Japanese forced labor.

However, Yoon’s presidency ended amid temporary martial law, which led to his resignation and left unresolved tensions in relations between Seoul and Tokyo under Lee’s leadership, who accuses Japan of maintaining an imperial past.

Since taking office in January, Lee has been expressing various views on Japan, including a pragmatic approach to foreign policy. After the meeting with Ishiba, Lee will return to Washington for the summit with Trump, which will take place on September 25, where trade and labor cooperation issues are planned to be discussed.

This meeting will be recorded in Seoul, where the Trump administration may change the decades-long alliance, demanding increased payments for the presence of American troops in South Korea.

Tags: Politics