Given North Korea’s stronger nuclear arsenal, the pervasiveness of anti-North Korean sentiment in the US, and the intensifying rivalry between the US and China, another North Korean nuclear crisis at this point might not be manageable.

The South Korea-US summit on May 21 came to a successful conclusion. It served as an opportunity for making the two countries’ alliance more reciprocal and comprehensive.

Even before the new US administration has sorted its political priorities—a necessity after four erratic Trump years—it is already forced to show the flag on foreign policy. Recently, the war between Israel and Hamas, at the same time the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the complicated relationship with Russia, the dysfunctional relations within NATO, the sensitivities of the German government resulting from disagreements over the North Stream 2 gas pipeline, and so on.

South Korea must keep a strong alliance with the US and maintain a strategic partnership with China.

President Trump’s confrontational “Make America Great Again” foreign policy put the United States and its allies on a collision course with each other and with China. It focused far too much diplomatic and public attention on US-China competition and eroded the liberal world order by creating a situation whereby the US itself began questioning its value. It also gave little support to nations and allies interested in finding inclusive solutions to tackle global problems by pitching countries as “for” or “against” major powers. In short, it did little for the advancement of our common interests and generated high levels of mistrust and unpredictability.

With the inauguration of Joe Biden as the next American president all but certain, the eyes of the world are once again turning to the US. People are speculating about the policy line to be adopted by Biden, who has promised to value American alliances and restore multilateralism in the international community in a departure from Donald Trump’s “America First” approach. But little is known about what policy the Biden administration will adopt on the North Korean nuclear issue, the topic of greatest interest to those of us in South Korea.