Seoul lawmakers gear up for impending launch of parliamentary alliance with US

The Democratic Party of Korea on Thursday held a meeting of a committee preparing for the stalled launch of a South Korea-US parliamentary alliance in the coming month.

The Democratic Party committee said the alliance bringing together South Korea’s National Assembly and the US Congress would be bipartisan, and that a delegation of South Korean lawmakers would be visiting Washington in February for its launch.

The committee included Democratic Party lawmakers who had just returned from a four-day trip to attend Donald Trump's presidential inauguration in Washington and to meet with Congress members, think tank officials and other figures close to Trump.

Rep. Hong Kee-won, who was part of the bipartisan delegation of lawmakers on that trip, said a “key figure” close to Trump assured South Korean lawmakers that the description of North Korea as a “nuclear power,” first by Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth and then by Trump himself, “doesn’t need to be taken literally.”

“I got the impression that the term ‘nuclear power’ was not being used to necessarily mean a nuclear weapons state with regards to North Korea. I think we have to be very careful before jumping to hasty interpretations,” he said.

Six-term Rep. Cho Jeong-sik, who was also on the trip, said Trump mentioning Kim Jong-un was interpreted by many in Washington as a de facto proposal for dialogue. “It looks like they are already preparing for possible US-North Korea dialogue,” he said.

“There is an understanding that unlike with the (Joe) Biden administration, North Korea has emerged as one of the main items in the US foreign policy agenda under Trump,” Cho said.

According to Democratic Party Rep. Kim Young-bae, the Trump side stressed that the top priority for South Korea was to “clear up the political uncertainties as early as possible.”

“One thing that repeatedly came up in meetings with US Congress members and Trump aides is that they feel the most pressing issue facing South Korea is to clear up the domestic uncertainties,” he said. “Trump only deals with top bosses and big guns, they said, and Korea is currently without one.”

Kim went on, “They said the US considered South Korea an important partner regardless of whether a liberal or a conservative administration is in power. They said Trump was close to Moon (Jae-in) just as Biden was to Yoon.”

According to the Democratic Party lawmakers, the South Korean delegation met with Fred Fleitz, vice chair of the America First Policy Institute, Rep. Young Kim of California, Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, among others, during their US trip.