🇺🇸🇰🇷 U.S.-South Korea Relations Are at Breaking Point — Foreign Policy

The Iran war has confirmed how little Washington cares for its ally’s welfare.

“The US has unilaterally turned the bridge [of the U.S.-Korea alliance] into a drawbridge, with controls only on the United States side. Even when the bridge is down, the gates, that is, tariffs, are controlled by Washington, and the entire edifice operates at the whim of a United States president.

“It grieves me to say it. Boy, I never thought I would have to say it. But I think Korea must begin to project its future on its own terms. Of course, it will do so wisely and prudently, but its interests are no longer congruent with those of the White House.

“What this means for troop command, independent nuclear capability and relations with China will require political skill and deftness of extraordinary range. Trump has made it abundantly clear that the US is solely concerned with its own interest. Anything else is for the gullible.”

Laney verbalized what many Korea analysts have been thinking but were too afraid to say: the U.S.-South Korea alliance is close to rupturing, and Washington is at fault. Thanks to the Trump administration’s actions, Seoul must reconsider the fundamental building blocks of the alliance, including U.S. troop presence in South Korea, a nuclear umbrella instead of its own nuclear armament, and participation in U.S. deterrence of China.

One may disagree with Laney’s prescription, but his diagnosis is unassailable: Trump has shown no regard toward the value of the alliance. Trump’s 25 percent tariff against South Korea’s exports is a flagrant violation of the 2007 U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, as well as the 2025 negotiation between the two countries to set tariffs at 15 percent. The latter agreement was coupled with South Korea’s pledge to invest up to $350 billion in U.S. industries, but the Trump administration could not even gracefully accept the financial boon.

In September 2025, U.S. immigration authorities conducted a thuggish raid on a Hyundai factory that was under construction in Georgia. The South Korean public watched in shock as hundreds of South Korean engineers, most of whom had valid employment visas, were shackled in chains on live television. Even Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s leading conservative daily paper with a staunch pro-U.S. stance, wrote in an editorial that the raid was “unacceptable between allies” and “raised fundamental questions as to what the United States means by ‘alliance.’”

Trump’s reckless war may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, pushing the U.S.-South Korea alliance to the point of no return. Laney prepared his remarks before Trump began the attack on Iran, but his warning proved unusually prescient.

But the intangible costs of the war may be even harder. For the first time in its existence as an independent nation, the ROK is genuinely doubting whether the United States can in fact make good on its security guarantee. The Iran war was the moment when the U.S. military was supposed to show its might on a real-life battlefield. But since the rubber met the road, the United States has been reduced to watching helplessly as Iran blockades the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian missiles hit the glittering skyscrapers of Dubai and oil refineries in Saudi Arabia.

One move in particular made the Trump administration seem pathetic to South Koreans. Because of his inability to prevail over Iran, Trump had to resort to redeploying the US' THAAD missile defense system from the ROK to the Middle East, while begging ROK to send its navy to the Persian Gulf. The redeployment of THAAD is particularly galling for South Koreans; in 2017, after allowing the United States to deploy THAAD on ROK territory despite China’s objections, Seoul suffered boycotts and trade restrictions imposed by Beijing. These wreaked havoc on large South Korean companies that were operating in China, such as Lotte, while the United States (then under the first Trump administration) stood pat and did nothing.

🔗 https://archive.ph/3Gv8X

🇮🇶🇮🇶/🇺🇸 — The military official of the Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades, Abu Mujahid al-Assaf:

In appreciation of the national stances of the outgoing Prime Minister, we have decided to release the American detainee (Shelly Kittleson), on the condition that she leaves the country immediately.

This initiative will not be repeated in the coming days; we are in a war launched by the Zionist-American enemy against Islam, and in such situations many considerations are disregarded.

🔴 @alsaa_plus_EN

🏹 🇮🇷 🇵🇰 Iran has told Pakistan that it believed it was winning and that it retained 15,000 missiles and 45,000 drones in its arsenal, according to mediators and a person familiar with the matter. -WSJ

📎 Faytuks News

🇿🇦🇺🇸 South African refugee arrivals to the United States by month:

2025

May: 68
June: 4
July: 21
August: 58
September: 191
October: 0
November: 122
December: 595

2026

January: 931
February: 1507
March: 1341

Total: 4838

📝 All other refugee arrivals to the United States are at (or near) zero. So far in 2026, only three arrivals were not South Africans.

@SouthAfricaReports

🇮🇱🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 Israel’s Channel 13 has set up a countdown clock in anticipation of Trump's deadline to wipe out Iran’s “civilization.”

🔗 Drop Site (@DropSiteNews)