[This opinion piece, contributed by the President of the Institute for Future Policy Studies, Dr. Tack Whan Kim, was written in a letter format for the United States President Donald Trump.]
SEOUL, August 24 (AJP) - Dear President Trump,
I hope you will allow me to use the American-style "you" in this letter. There is a saying that comes to mind when I think of your effort to build a new world out of chaos. Willy Brandt, the German chancellor who pioneered East-West détente in Europe, sowed the seeds of German unification and won the Nobel Peace Prize, once said: "Peace is not everything, but without peace, everything is nothing." With wars raging and civilians dying around the world, there is nothing more important than the work of "Great Peace-Making."
History has shown us what real peace-making leadership looks like. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served four terms, allied with the Soviet Union during World War II to defeat Hitler’s Germany and Imperial Japan. He went on to shape the United Nations and the Bretton Woods system, laying the foundations of the postwar order. Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s "Iron Chancellor," unified his country through realpolitik and later steered Europe away from major war through careful balance-of-power diplomacy. I recall that your own grandfather was a German immigrant.
At home, you raised the banner of "MAGA," making America great again. Abroad, I believe you have pursued the role of peacemaker. You stepped in to ease military tensions between Thailand and Cambodia, brought the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to the White House, and even invited President Vladimir Putin to Alaska to try to end the war in Ukraine. China’s Xi Jinping, by contrast, buys cheap Russian energy but offers no real effort at peace. There will be no "pax Sinica." It remains "pax Americana."
It is time for you, President Trump, to reshape geopolitics as a true "Great Peace-Maker." Critics such as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman may call you a "tyrant," but I urge you to show what I would call "patchwork diplomacy" on the Korean Peninsula. Nobel laureate François Jacob once wrote of "Evolution and Tinkering" in Science. It is an idea that fits your approach well, responding creatively within limits to bring about new solutions. Tomorrow, on the 25th, you will meet President Lee Jae-myung at the South Korea–U.S. summit in Washington.
What, then, is the bond between our two nations? We often use the term "blood alliance." America has been both an occupier and a divider, but also a liberator and protector. The decision at Yalta to divide Korea changed our fate. Yet the U.S. also freed us from Japan and stood with us in the Korean War. Some 36,000 Americans were killed, alongside about 137,000 South Korean soldiers and more than 1 million civilians. Without America, could South Korea have become a top-ten economy and a democracy? Just as the U.S. defended us, we now share America’s interests, values, and prosperity.
I also know you have voiced doubts about us, once calling South Korea an "ATM." But our achievements were not handed to us. They were built on sweat and sacrifice. From the ruins of colonial rule, war, and division, we rose again. We sent miners and nurses to Germany, fought alongside U.S. troops in Vietnam, and worked in deserts and on construction projects across the Middle East and Africa. This is how we made what is known as the "Miracle on the Han River." Even today, South Koreans work some of the longest hours among OECD nations.
At this week’s summit, you are expected to discuss tariffs, defense cost-sharing, and a new geopolitical framework. As with your dealings with the EU, defense spending of around 3.5 percent and weapons imports could be negotiated. I hope you and President Lee Jae-myung will reach a summit outcome that sets the stage for a new geopolitical order, one that could also strengthen diplomacy with Kim Jong Un and provide leverage toward China.
Korea’s mythical emblem, the Samjoko, the three-legged crow, is not unlike your bald eagle. It symbolizes balance and good fortune. In both East and West, the number three is sacred: the Christian Trinity, Korea’s Cheon-Ji-In (Heaven, Earth, and Humanity), and the dialectical idea of synthesis. If you, together with the leaders of North and South Korea, can bring about peace on the peninsula—denuclearization, prosperity, normalization between the U.S. and North Korea—it would crown your role as the Great Peace-Maker. Success would more than justify a Nobel Peace Prize, as it did for Brandt and for Kim Dae-jung.
Why not, at this summit, issue a communiqué inviting Kim Jong Un to the APEC summit in Gyeongju this October? Next year’s APEC will be in China, so Xi Jinping will be there. In Gyeongju, you could hold a U.S.–China summit and even bring together the U.S., China, and the two Koreas. After that, imagine visiting Pyongyang for a round of golf with both Korean leaders. The Pyongyang course even has a funnel hole where a hole-in-one is possible.
As a real estate developer, you could also propose with North and South Korea the creation of a "Global AI Valley" and perhaps a "Trump Golf Course" inside the DMZ. Such a move would show bold leadership, the kind that overshadows Xi and Putin. I hope this summit will go beyond "small deals" like defense costs and instead embrace the "big deal" of becoming the Great Peace-Maker of the Korean Peninsula.
Mr. President, I almost had the chance to meet you. As a journalist at a major daily, I once interviewed Warren Buffett, the "Oracle of Omaha." Later, I was offered the chance to interview you through a senior contact, but your visit was canceled. By coincidence, both you and I have a grandchild named Kai. After seeing Kai speak during the 2024 campaign, I felt certain you would win. I have read "The Art of the Deal," follow your posts on social media, and often click "like." I even published columns predicting your victory.
Let me close with one of your favorite sayings: "If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big." If at this summit you show the world bold and creative diplomacy, you will move beyond those who mock you as a "trader" and stand as a statesman, the kind Kim Yo-jong once described as "a great man who can change the flow of history." Do that, and you will join the ranks of President Lincoln, remembered for embracing his rivals and leading a nation to unity.
God bless you and Korea.
Sincerely,
Dr. Tack Whan Kim
President, Institute for Future Policy Studies. National vision strategist, author of more than 20 books including "The U.S.–China Economic Power Struggle and the Future of the Korean Peninsula," former journalist at JoongAng Ilbo, visiting scholar at Georgetown University, and lecturer who has given more than 350 talks at institutions such as the National Assembly and Samsung Electronics.
reporter
Dr. Tack Whan Kim
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
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