President Joe Biden welcomes South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol to the White House for the full pomp and circumstance and hospitality of an official state visit – a high-stakes meeting amid ongoing provocations from North Korea, China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region and a recent leak of Pentagon documents.
The leaders are set to announce a key new agreement strengthening extended deterrence – a US policy that uses the full range of military capabilities to defend its allies – with new commitments alongside South Korea in response to nuclear threats from North Korea.
And more broadly, the visit signals the importance with which the US views its relationships with allies in the Indo-Pacific, this trip coming one week before Biden hosts Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos and weeks before Biden is expected to travel to the region himself.
Biden and Yoon will unveil the “Washington Declaration” on Wednesday at the White House, senior administration officials told reporters, a set of new steps to boost US-South Korean cooperation on military training, information sharing and strategic asset movements in the face of a recent spate of missile launches from North Korea.
It is intended to send a clear message: “What the United States and the ROK plan to do at every level is strengthen our practices, our deployments, our capabilities, to ensure the deterrent message is absolutely unquestioned and to also make clear that if we are tested in any way that we will be prepared to respond collectively and in an overwhelming way,” a senior administration official said.
The product of a monthslong discussion between officials from both countries, the declaration will announce that the US “(intends) to take steps to make our deterrence more visible through the regular deployment of strategic assets, including a US nuclear ballistic…
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