Trump, Moon and a fight over the bill. In US-Korea ties, a perfect storm for Kim Jong-un

An isolationist US administration, a dovish South Korean one, and anger all round at who pays: rarely has the Washington-Seoul friendship seemed more shaky.

For North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, seeking a BFF of his own, the stars have aligned

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Troops from North and South Korea meet at the border. Photo: AP

Published: 8:04am, 12 Jan 2019Updated: 8:03am, 12 Jan 2019

Whenever they meet, officials from South Korea and the United States have a favoured phrase for describing the strength of their relations.

The three-word motto “We go together” is intended to encapsulate the common cause that has united the sides in a military alliance for more than six decades. When President Donald Trump was welcomed to South Korea on a rare state visit in November 2017, he was gifted traditional Korean utensils engraved with the phrase.

This Week in Asia's Conscious Uncoupling cover. Click to enlarge.

But behind the rhetoric, cracks in that unity have raised questions about the future of the alliance, a bulwark against nuclear-armed North Korea and a major plank of a US security policy focused on regional stability and Chinese containment.

The US-Korea alliance is experiencing its greatest crisis in recent years

Song Dae-sung

In Washington and Seoul, observers fear a perfect storm of risks to a partnership that is widely seen in both capitals as having been a linchpin of peace and prosperity since the end of hostilities between the US-backed South and communist-backed North in 1953.

Those headwinds include a US president with isolationist tendencies, a dovish South Korean administration accused by critics of putting rapprochement with Pyongyang ahead of denuclearisation, and left-wing-nationalist opposition in South Korea to the US military presence there.