WASHINGTON/TOKYO/SEOUL: Donald Trump’s allies assure officials in Japan and South Korea that the Republican presidential nominee will support Biden-era efforts to deepen trilateral relations aimed at countering China and North Korea, five people familiar with the talks said.
In talks in recent weeks, political advisers close to Trump have conveyed this message to officials in Seoul and Tokyo: If Trump is re-elected, the former U.S. president would support efforts by both capitals to warm once-frosty relations and strengthen military, economic and diplomatic cooperation to ease global tensions, the people said.
The talks were reported to Reuters by Republicans and officials from each of the Asian countries, many of whom were directly involved.
The yet unpublished actions are part of an effort by Trump’s allies to convince Washington’s closest friends in Asia that his method of crushing traditional alliances ends on the shores of the Indo-Pacific.
There, the U.S. is grappling with rising tensions over Taiwan and the South China Sea, China’s new partnership with Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s overtures to North Korea.
“I assured them that the alliance will be strong and that Trump recognizes that we must work closely with our allies to defend their interests,” said Fred Fleitz, Trump’s former chief of staff on the National Security Council, who traveled to Japan and he met with officials there, including national security adviser Takeo Akiba.
These talks take on added importance after Biden’s disastrous performance in Thursday’s debate, which could push undecided voters toward Trump and spurred calls for him to step down in the 2024 race.
Trump’s allies have outlined other foreign policy plans if he wins in November, including a peace plan for Ukraine and a plan to restructure NATO funding. The assurances to Japan and South Korea go further, as they include direct talks with foreign officials. In May, former Trump foreign policy officials met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump’s campaign has not confirmed whether he will accept the proposals.
“Nobody has the right to talk to a foreign government and make promises on behalf of President Donald Trump,” Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said when asked about the assurances. The politics section of the Trump campaign website does not discuss the subject.
Fleitz said he was not speaking on Trump’s behalf and was instead offering an assessment based on his experience with the candidate. He said the U.S., Japan and South Korea would likely work together to counter China and North Korea during Trump’s next term.
Sources say dozens of meetings have been held or planned at the highest levels of the Japanese and South Korean governments with right-wing think tanks such as the America First Policy Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Hudson Institute, which are known to be planning policies that Trump could implement in 2025 r.
One Asian official briefed on recent regional meetings with Trump allies said their government takes the meetings seriously and considers them to be a credible representation of Trump’s position.
Trump’s Plans for a Second Term
The talks show that Trump’s allies are making a serious effort to outline policy priorities for a second term in the months before the 2024 U.S. election, where Trump is leading in key swing states that could decide the outcome of the race.
Trump’s victory in the 2016 election surprised all countries and forced them to try to understand the views of the new president, who hastily called together White House advisers.
A consortium of conservative think tanks known as Project 2025, which is developing detailed plans for Trump’s second presidency, describes South Korea and Japan in its handbook as “key allies” in the military, economic, diplomatic and technological fields.
But the manual also calls for pressure on South Korea to “take the lead in conventional defense against North Korea,” echoing Trump’s concerns about taking on too much financial responsibility for other countries’ security. The 2025 Project said it does not speak on behalf of the Trump campaign.
Support for BidenN
Still, Republicans’ actions in Asia represent one narrow area of potential continuity between Trump and Biden.
The Democratic US president took power from Trump in 2021 after a hard-fought election campaign and has prioritized strengthening traditional alliances like those that Trump has sometimes downplayed.
Biden encouraged South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to work together and overcome decades of mutual suspicion and hostility.
The efforts culminated last summer with a Camp David summit between the leaders, which pledged new defense cooperation in the face of nuclear threats from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s sovereignty claims over democratically governed Taiwan.
“My view, and President Trump’s as well, is that the deeper the economic ties between these three countries, the stronger the ties will be,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, who served as ambassador to Japan in the Trump administration and remains in contact with Asian governments, and some in these circles consider him Trump’s likely candidate for a second term.
Another former Trump official described the calls as partly a campaign tactic, adding that Democrats’ “main complaint is that he abandoned friends and allies and acted alone. Now he is more careful not to give Democrats any new ground to attack.”
Welcome signal
In Seoul and Tokyo, where officials are considering Trump’s possible return to office, Republican expressions of solidarity were welcomed as a welcome signal that Trump’s Asia policy may be different from the hard-line approach that has irritated allies from Ottawa to Brussels.
While polls show Biden and Trump close, Yoon and Kishida face overwhelming opinion polls at home, raising the question of whether the spirit of Camp David can withstand a leadership change in any of the three countries.
South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that cooperation between the three countries was “not only necessary but natural” and that the initiative had gained bipartisan support in the United States, including under the previous administration.
“Japan is following the U.S. presidential election with interest, but is unable to comment individually on elections in third countries,” Japan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the alliance enjoys bipartisan support.
Spokespeople for the Biden campaign and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
“I don’t see any reason why the trilateral cooperation should be going away at all,” said Alexander Gray, a former White House National Security Council chief of staff under Trump who is now CEO of American Global Strategies, a Washington think tank. “There’s a general fear, which I think is unfounded, that President Trump is going to abandon the things that Joe Biden started and, you know, just abandon them because Joe Biden was involved in them.”