The U.S., Japan and South Korea will decide on the location, size and functions of a planned permanent body to oversee trilateral diplomatic cooperation when vice foreign ministers meet later this year, U.S. State Department officials said Monday.
The three partners have agreed to create “a body that coordinates all of the different strands of the trilateral engagement,” an official said in a press briefing about a May 31 meeting among U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano and South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun.
The informal meeting was held at Campbell’s personal retreat in Rappahannock County, Virginia. The three diplomats discussed regional and global affairs, China, partnering with the Global South, the economy and technology, and the next steps to take together.
The engagement grows and deepens with every meeting, the official said. The strength of the trilateral relationship is “phenomenal” compared with four or five years ago, he said.
When U.S. President Joe Biden met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David in August 2023, they agreed to hold trilateral meetings annually between ministers of foreign affairs, defense, finance and commerce, as well as among national security advisers.
The role of the secretariat is to “make sure that all of those different strands stay on track,” the official said, referring to the coordinating body. While the exact form of the body — its staff size and budget — remains undecided, its purpose is to ensure that all three countries are fully committed to delivering on promises made by top- and deputy-level meetings, he said.
Analysts note that the reconciliation of Japan and South Korea, which have traditionally have had rocky relations due to their wartime history, is one of Biden’s biggest foreign policy achievements. It is not clear whether former President Donald Trump will approach the trilateral relationship in a similar manner if he wins the November election. In his first term, Trump pressed both allies to substantially increase host-nation support payments to fund forward-deployed U.S. troops.
Having a collaborating mechanism up and running this year is partly to ensure that the trilateral cooperation continues, regardless of domestic political developments in each country.
“We’re actively working on it. And we hope to be able to have a specific plan that we’ll be able to announce at the next deputy-vice foreign minister-level trilateral engagement,” which will happen toward the latter half of this year, the official said. A separate official said the body will “institutionalize” the trilateral partnership.
