South Korean president Moon Jae-in has pledged to maintain close relations with the United States under the Biden administration. The two countries’ aim to create a coordinated strategy regarding North Korea. Moon has offered to act as mediation between the US and North Korea as they attempt to restore previously stalled discussions. Biden and Moon’s primary focus moving forward is the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which had been discussed by the US and North Korea prior to the falling out of discussions. The US and South Korean alliance will also focus on economic recovery, responding to climate change, and restoring democracy in Myanmar following the coup d’etat.
North and South Korea have agreed to work towards the long-term goal of reunifying the Korean peninsula. Denuclearization efforts, headed by Washington, could open the door for prospects of lifting international sanctions and providing humanitarian aid, signifying greater peace on a global scale. However, equal unification is not predicted to happen easily; while efforts at coordinated strategy between South Korea and the US are a step towards improving the current situation, unifying the two Koreas would need to be handled extremely delicately to avoid any potential conflict outbreak.
Washington’s best interest in supporting the potential for unification is to support South Korean stability, and its economy in the Indo-Pacific especially as Chinese influence continues to grow. Instability would be damaging to the US economy as well, being that South Korean and US economies are interlinked.