The People Power Party sharply criticized the Lee Jae Myung government's foreign and security policy Tuesday, targeting both the reduction of joint South Korea-US military exercises and the dismissal of trade negotiator Yeo Han-koo.
PPP leader Jang Dong-hyeok wrote on Facebook that President Lee "is dismantling the South Korea-US alliance," adding that he had "repeatedly warned that disaster could strike if the alliance is not strengthened" and that "that warning is now becoming reality."
Jang also leveled sharp criticism at US President Donald Trump's order to scale back the joint exercises. "President Trump made the reason clear," Jang wrote. "He said he asked President Lee during a phone call to support the Iran campaign but was turned down." Jang added that Trump had recounted Lee's response — "We'd rather not get involved" — and Trump's rejoinder: "Then why are we involved in helping you?"
"This amounts to an effective breakdown of the South Korea-US alliance," Jang said. "And yet this administration has done nothing but repeat that there is no problem with the alliance."
Jang warned that the consequences of US-North Korea talks excluding South Korea are predictable. "The North Korean regime will only grow more entrenched, and the alliance will unravel," he said, adding that Trump "could even push for a full withdrawal of USFK."
PPP floor policy chief Rep. Kim Mi-ae also raised criticism over the exercise cuts. Speaking at a floor strategy meeting at the National Assembly, she said "the two pillars of the South Korea-US alliance — security and trade — are collapsing at the same time," and that the significant reduction of the joint exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield was "unilaterally announced through the other country's leader's social media, not through official consultations between the two governments."
Kim also took aim at the dismissal of the trade negotiator. "He emptied the command post on the eve of a decisive battle," she said of President Lee, adding: "At the very moment final negotiations were under way over a $200 billion investment project with the United States, he cleared out the trade control tower without even naming a successor. Is this what the Lee Jae Myung government calls practical diplomacy?"
PPP lawmaker Na Kyung-won also weighed in on the exercise reductions, saying "the foundation of the alliance is being shaken by the Lee administration's submissive security outlook and its endless acts of self-inflicted harm." She said South Korea had "voluntarily cut its own training and invited its own disarmament," with the result that "even the United States has now openly declared a drastic reduction of joint military exercises, reducing a blood-forged alliance to a matter of cost and transaction."
Na added that "the deterrence won through powerful retaliatory force 50 years ago has vanished, leaving only the sorry face of a diplomacy and security apparatus being sidelined even by its own ally."
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