Breaking with decades of policy on North Korea, the president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, is now urging the United States to ease sanctions on Pyongyang in exchange for an agreement that it freeze its weapons programs.
“I believe there is significant value in a trade-off between sanctions — which are not particularly effective anyway — and a stop to the development of additional nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile technology,” Mr. Lee said in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.
However unpalatable such a bargain may seem, the world has no realistic alternative, Mr. Lee argued. North Korea is increasingly brandishing its nuclear missiles against the South. It is no longer the isolated pariah that Washington has tried to tame through a mix of pressure and dialogue as the wars in Ukraine and Iran have altered the geopolitical landscape.
Both Russia and China have re-embraced North Korea as a strategic partner, particularly after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, deployed troops and weapons to support Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That conflict, alongside American strikes in Iran, has only strengthened North Korea’s resolve to expand its nuclear deterrent.
Still, Mr. Lee believes that President Trump is the only leader capable of drawing Mr. Kim back to the negotiating table. South Korean officials say Mr. Trump represents the North Korean leader’s best opportunity to sign a peace treaty for the Korean War, which never formally ended, and normalize relations with Washington.
Some analysts warn it is naïve to expect the two leaders to forge a substantial deal, but Mr. Lee asked what option is left but diplomacy.
“Aiming for denuclearization under the current circumstances,” Mr. Lee warned, “guarantees that nothing will be accomplished.”
Once a freeze is secured, he envisions building trust through reciprocal incentives and concessions to eventually convince the North to reduce its nuclear arsenal. The ultimate goal would be to create an environment where Pyongyang feels secure enough to survive without nuclear weapons.
This week, Mr. Lee will visit New York, where he will present his vision for peace and coexistence on the Korean Peninsula to the United Nations.
Mr. Lee spoke with The Times for about 70 minutes at the House of Eternal Spring, a tile-roofed banquet hall nestled within the Blue House compound, the traditional seat of the South Korean presidency. His predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative, moved the presidential office to the Defense Ministry headquarters before declaring martial law two years ago, starting a turbulent political period that ended in his impeachment and imprisonment.
Mr. Lee’s decision to return the presidency to the Blue House upon his inauguration 15 months ago was meant to signal a return to normalcy. During a recent university graduation, he posed for selfies with students — a stark contrast to Mr. Yoon, whose bodyguards tackled and gagged a student protester two years earlier.
But Mr. Lee, 61, is facing his own problems. His approval ratings have nearly halved since April as many South Koreans blame his government for soaring home prices and a recent stock market crash.
He also faces mounting pressure from Mr. Trump, who recently called him ungrateful for refusing to back the American war against Iran. During the interview, Mr. Lee defended his stance on Iran, saying that South Korea’s Constitution barred him from deploying troops to a war already underway between foreign countries.
The South Korean president is also seeking to defuse trade tensions with Mr. Trump. South Korean negotiators are racing to implement a deal struck between the two leaders last fall, in which Seoul agreed to invest $350 billion in the United States in exchange for lower tariffs on South Korean products.
To placate Mr. Trump, South Korea may offer to build a gas power plant in Texas and eight nuclear power plants across the United States, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Lee insisted he was unfazed by Mr. Trump’s criticisms. “I fully understand that from his perspective, the U.S. president may make various remarks,” he said.
Mr. Lee hopes to leverage Mr. Trump’s enduring fascination with the North Korean dictator to convince the U.S. leader to restart stalled talks and de-escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Mr. Lee hopes dialogue between North Korea and the United States would improve his own nation’s relations with its neighbor to the north, which have deteriorated in recent years. North Korea has demolished roads and railways that once linked the two Koreas while also adding minefields and other barriers along their already heavily fortified border.
By contrast, North Korea is moving closer to both Moscow and Beijing. After supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine, the North has opened a bridge along its border with Russia and is about to open another one with China.
The collapse of inter-Korean communication has eliminated South Korea’s ability to serve as a mediator between Mr. Kim and Mr. Trump, a role Seoul played in helping arrange three summit meetings during Mr. Trump’s first term. Those meetings ended without agreement on denuclearizing North Korea.
Backed by Russia and China and buoyed by renewed economic growth, Mr. Kim is no longer as desperate for a deal with Mr. Trump and now possesses greater leverage to demand more favorable terms, analysts have said. Still, Mr. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to revive his personal diplomacy with Mr. Kim, often boasting of their “very good relationship.”
Last month, Mr. Trump unilaterally scaled back a major annual joint military exercise with South Korea, describing it as “hostile” toward Mr. Kim. North Korea, for its part, said that Mr. Kim retained “good memories and feelings about Trump” from their previous meetings.
Mr. Lee is not alone in calling for a change in strategy to revive talks with the North. At a forum in South Korea last week, Stephen E. Biegun, who led U.S. negotiations with North Korea during Mr. Trump’s first term, said the United States could negotiate a “slowing or freezing” of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
Others are more skeptical about a breakthrough. Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Seoul-based Sejong Institute, cautioned that Mr. Trump may be more interested in creating a diplomatic spectacle with Mr. Kim, such as a surprise visit to Pyongyang, to divert public attention from the prolonged war with Iran. Nor would achieving a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula be Mr. Kim’s main concern, he said.
Mr. Lee says the current stalemate in relations is simply too risky to be allowed to continue, as North Korea is steadily expanding its nuclear arsenal.
“Our estimates suggest that North Korea is now capable of producing, or may already be producing, an additional 10 to 20 nuclear weapons each year,” Mr. Lee said. “Once it believes it has accumulated enough nuclear weapons and missiles to guarantee its survival, it will be tempted to export them to make money.”
“That will be a truly dangerous moment,” he said.
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