The U.S. Department of Energy added South Korea to its “sensitive countries list” without prior notice to the S. Korean government, and U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth canceled a planned visit to Seoul after initially coordinating the trip.
These developments have fueled concerns among diplomatic circles that Washington is increasingly sidelining S. Korea amid the country’s ongoing political turmoil following the imposition of martial law and the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Since the Trump administration took office on Jan. 20, high-level communication between Seoul and Washington has been virtually absent, with no summit-level diplomacy taking place. Some within the S. Korean government argue that to prevent further diplomatic setbacks, the Constitutional Court should expedite its ruling on the impeachment of Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, an expert in U.S. and trade diplomacy, regardless of its separate deliberations on Yoon’s impeachment.
The defense ministries of both countries had discussed the possibility of Hegseth visiting S. Korea as part of his late-March tour of the Indo-Pacific region. If the visit had taken place, he would have been the first cabinet-level official from Trump’s second administration to visit Seoul.
His agenda reportedly included discussions on bilateral security cooperation as well as shipbuilding collaboration, a key priority for President Trump. Specifically, he was expected to explore cooperation between S. Korea’s shipbuilding industry and the U.S. military on warship construction, maintenance, and repair.
However, the Pentagon recently scrapped the Seoul leg of Hegseth’s tour. While he still plans to visit U.S. military bases and allied nations in the Indo-Pacific, S. Korea has been excluded. He is set to proceed with planned visits to Guam, Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines. South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense stated only that the visit was “unavoidably postponed due to scheduling adjustments by the U.S. side.”
For this reason, analysts say the prolonged power vacuum in S. Korea—where both the president and the prime minister have been impeached and the defense minister’s post remains vacant—was a key factor. With the country’s top military leadership effectively absent, the U.S. may have deemed substantive discussions impractical. Similarly, former U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also canceled his planned farewell visit to Seoul last December under the previous Biden administration.
More than two months into President Trump’s second term, the leaders of S. Korea and the United States have yet to hold a phone call. U.S. officials have reportedly expressed reluctance, citing the unusual political situation in Seoul, where Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok is serving as acting president following Han’s impeachment. The lack of engagement contrasts with Japan, where Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met with Trump in Washington on Feb. 6.
Furthermore, S. Korean foreign and defense ministers have yet to visit the U.S. since Trump returned to office. Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul briefly met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last month but has not traveled to Washington.
Meanwhile, acting minister of national defense of South Korea Kim Seon-ho, has been unable to schedule overseas trips due to the ongoing political crisis. Among senior S. Korean officials, only National Security Advisor Shin Won-sik and Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun have visited the U.S. to meet with American counterparts.
Concerns are growing that S. Korea’s diplomatic leadership vacuum could lead to further sidelining by the U.S. Some political and government officials argue that regardless of Yoon’s impeachment trial, Han should be reinstated as soon as possible to restore normal diplomatic relations.
Han, a veteran diplomat and trade expert, previously served as S. Korea’s trade minister under President Kim Dae-jung, finance minister and prime minister under President Roh Moo-hyun, and ambassador to the U.S. under President Lee Myung-bak, where he played a key role in handling the U.S. congressional ratification of the S. Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA). He is also known to have established communication channels with Trump’s close aides.
