https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/world/asia/south-korea-lee-jae-myung-policy.htmlWhere South Korea’s Likely New President Stands on Trump and North KoreaFacing a complex set of thorny challenges at home and abroad, Lee Jae-myung says he will deal with them with “pragmatism.”
Lee Jae-myung, who an exit poll projects will be the next leader of South Korea, would take office as one of the most powerful presidents the country has chosen in recent decades.
Besides the presidency, where most of the political power is concentrated, he would have the National Assembly on his side as his Democratic Party has a large majority of the seats there.
Observers in and outside South Korea wonder: Will he use the immense power to heal his deeply divided country and revive its sputtering economy, as he said he would? Or will he seek political revenge, aggravating political polarization and alienating its ally, the United States, as his enemies said he would?
Here is a glance at what Mr. Lee, who calls himself a “pragmatist,” has said on key issues:
Foreign PolicyMr. Lee would represent a break from his impeached predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol. Mr. Yoon was more confrontational toward North Korea and China, and he improved ties with Japan, a historic enemy, despite outcries in South Korea. He aligned Seoul more firmly with Washington as the strategic competition between the United States and China intensified.
Mr. Lee said he would try to repair his country’s strained ties with China and North Korea while maintaining a strong military alliance with the United States, which he said should remain the bedrock of South Korean diplomacy. He has said Mr. Yoon was too “submissive” toward Japan and too “antagonistic” toward China.
“Cooperation with the United States and Japan is essential,” Mr. Lee said. “But we should not put all our eggs in one basket.”
Mr. Lee and his Democratic Party have long championed dialogue with Pyongyang as the best way to avoid conflict on the divided Korean Peninsula and defuse tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities. They have said they would recommend President Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize should he succeed in bringing peace in Korea through new negotiations with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
“It is important to win a war; it is even more important to win without a war. But the best of all is to make peace and make it unnecessary to fight,” Mr. Lee said.
China-Taiwan ConflictThe Democratic Party does not want South Korea to be embroiled in the clash between the United States and China, including in a potential armed conflict over Taiwan. When his conservative rivals accused him of sitting on the fence, Mr. Lee said South Korea’s national interest was his guiding priority.
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“Why should it matter so much to us if China and Taiwan engage in conflict?” he said on the campaign trail.
Trump and TariffsMr. Lee said the second Trump administration was bringing “the law of the jungle” into the international order. Mr. Trump has demanded that South Korea pay more for keeping American troops on its soil. He has also placed steep tariffs on key South Korean exports like cars and steel.
Mr. Lee said that fending off the relentless pressure from Mr. Trump was one of his most urgent diplomatic challenges.
“I will crawl between his legs if necessary, and if that’s what I have to do for my people,” he said this week. “But I am not a pushover, either. South Korea also has quite a few cards to play in give-and-take negotiations.”
The Economy“The most urgent, more urgent than domestic reform, is improving the economic condition of the people,” Mr. Lee said on the eve of the election.
In the past, Mr. Lee’s critics had often called him “South Korea’s Bernie Sanders” because of his progressive proposals, such as a universal basic income for young people, when he was a provincial governor. During the presidential campaign, he said he would pass a parliamentary bill that would give subcontracted workers more rights to start collective bargaining and labor strikes.
But Mr. Lee steered away from his party’s traditional election-time promises of wealth distribution and higher taxes on the rich. Instead, he tried to expand his appeal among voters in the middle by emphasizing economic growth.
South Korea’s economic condition has become so dire that “we must give more priority to growth,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that I have given up on welfare and distribution.”
Domestic ReformsDuring his campaign, Mr. Lee urged South Koreans to vote to “end the insurrection,” saying that Mr. Yoon’s short-lived imposition of martial law in December has placed South Korea at a “crossroads between a free republic and dictatorship.”
While Mr. Lee has said he will not seek revenge if elected and heal divisions, his opponents fear a sweeping purge. Mr. Lee has vowed to launch extensive investigations to “ferret out” and “punish” those in government, military and political circles who played key roles in conspiring to place South Korea under martial law for the first time in 45 years.
If confirmed as president, Mr. Lee and his center-left Democratic Party are also widely expected to pass bills to tame the nation’s prosecution service. Mr. Yoon, a former prosecutor-general, had been accused of using his allies in the prosecution service to harass his enemies, including unfriendly journalists and politicians like Mr. Lee.
Mr. Lee’s supporters want him to push special bills through the National Assembly to investigate wide-ranging allegations of corruption surrounding Mr. Yoon’s family.
Women’s RightsYoung South Korean women played a prominent role in massive rallies that precipitated the parliamentary impeachment of Mr. Yoon and his removal from office, which made the election — and Mr. Lee’s expected presidency — possible.
During the campaign, Mr. Lee said he would make South Korea safer and fairer for women by cracking down on sexual crimes and tackling the gender-income gap in his country, the widest among developed countries. But he shied away from addressing other urgent demands from women, such as anti-discrimination legislation.
Mr. Lee was accused of avoiding those issues so as not to anger young male voters who regarded the women’s demands as “reverse discrimination” against men. Mr. Lee denied the accusation and said that he would create more job opportunities for all young South Koreans to reduce tensions between young men and women.