South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will meet Donald Trump for his first face-to-face talks over America’s decades-long role on the Korean peninsula, amid speculation that the US is preparing to scale back its military presence.
The US has 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea under an alliance that dates back to the Korean war. But Washington wants Seoul to take on more of the burden of deterring nuclear-armed North Korea, as the US shifts its focus to containing China’s growing military strength.
Lee will also be tasked at Monday’s White House summit with cementing an eleventh-hour trade deal announced last month, which US and Korean officials have interpreted very differently.