ABSTRACT
The presidency of Donald Trump challenged the conventional wisdom about the US’s relationship with the Korean Peninsula from multiple, and at times contradictory, directions. President Trump has questioned the value of the alliance with South Korea, the importance of avoiding conflict with North Korea, and also the avoidance of direct meetings with North Korea’s leader barring regime concessions. At each step along the way, he has drawn praise from supporters of such positions, reflecting the deep frustrations in American intellectual circles at being shut out of mainstream discourse on US–Korea relations. And yet, as Trump’s term ends, no breakthrough on the North Korean nuclear program has come, and neither has war nor a dissolution of the US–South Korea alliance. This chapter shows that Donald Trump’s unconventional approach to the Peninsula was largely due to faith in his own abilities relative to his predecessors, rather than for ideological reasons. It also shows that his failure to bring lasting change to the dynamics on the Peninsula lies in the fact that the status quo, while far from ideal, has yet to be replaced with a better model. In short, the status quo persists for a reason.
