Yoon's foreign policy may backfire at home and abroad

Significance

Despite its warmth, he won no respite for South Korean companies facing restrictive new US laws, and the nuclear security assurances he received are ambiguous. Meanwhile Yoon’s boldest foreign policy gambit, rapprochement with Japan, is gaining pace. On May 7-8, Fumio Kishida will be the first Japanese prime minister to hold a formal bilateral summit in Seoul since 2011.

Impacts

• US pressure on South Korea to arm Ukraine will continue, and Seoul may eventually agree.
• Moving further out of step with public opinion would reduce Yoon's party’s already slim chance of winning the next legislative elections.
• President Biden and Yoon are deliberately ignoring North Korea, but it could easily devise a provocation serious enough to draw a response.