US President Donald Trump has met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the White House, talking defense and a possible meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
00:00U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes South Korean President Lee Jae-myung to the White House on Monday.
00:09It's Lee's first trip to Washington since taking office after a snap election in June.
00:14And the meeting is cordial, even though Trump's criticized investigations into Lee's impeached predecessor, Yoon Suk-yeol.
00:21Thank you very much. Good job.
00:24Trump has a lot on his mind during the meeting, from the war in Ukraine to trade with China.
00:29But there was also time for talking U.S.-South Korea defense ties.
00:36The U.S. is South Korea's defense guarantor, with more than 20,000 troops in the country and the promise of nuclear deterrence.
00:43But Trump has called Seoul, quote, a money machine that takes advantage of this protection.
00:48He wants South Korea to raise military spending and maybe even cede the land that major joint military bases sit on.
00:55They would say, but we gave you land. I said, no, you didn't. You lease us land. There's a big difference between giving and leasing.
01:02And maybe one of the things I'd like to do is ask them to give us ownership of the land while we have the big fort.
01:08And he has also hinted at more talks with North Korea, the South's nuclear-armed rival.
01:17Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times during his first term in office.
01:22He says he wants to meet Kim again this year.
01:25And although he says his many upcoming meetings make it hard to say when, he remembers a 2019 meeting along the demilitarized zone that separates North from South as a kind of experience he'd like to repeat.
01:37And yet I felt safe. I felt safe because I have a great relationship with Kim Jong-un.
01:42I hope it stays that way. I think it will. I have a very good relationship. I understand him. I spent a lot of free time with him talking about things that we probably aren't supposed to talk about.
01:53And, you know, I just, I get along with him really well. I think he has a country of great potential.
02:00Whether North Korea is interested is another matter. It has ignored Trump's overtures so far.
02:05After the meeting, Lee Jae-myung spoke at the Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
02:12He says his country is raising military spending.
02:15And it seems he's taking Trump's expectations of more South Korean involvement in its own security seriously.
02:21I think it's interesting that he's talking about the Korean relationship to the Korean conflict today.
02:34That's how I am.
02:37With his Trump meeting, Lee has navigated a big early challenge during his young presidency, keeping the U.S. president upbeat.
03:01But with the Korean Peninsula a volatile place, his work is just beginning.
03:07Hang Xu and John Van Trieste for Taiwan Plus.
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