The White House announced on Tuesday that President Yoon Suk-yeol will make a state visit to the U.S. on April 26 for a summit with President Joe Biden. Yoon’s visit will mark the second state visit by a foreign leader to the U.S. since Biden took office in Jan. 2021. The visit will help to mark the 70th anniversary of the U.S.-ROK alliance. Yoon and Biden are expected to speak on various issues that affect the alliance, such as North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, China’s growing assertiveness, semiconductors, the Inflation Reduction Act and South Korea’s improving relations with Japan.

South Korea’s national security adviser Kim Sung-han traveled to Washington earlier to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Jake Sullivan, to discuss the upcoming state visit and how to maintain close cooperation to further enhance the two countries’ security ties to respond to the changing threat environment in the Indo-Pacific region.

Why It Matters

Although President Yoon Suk-yeol has been staunchly pro-U.S., this summit comes at a sensitive time for the alliance. Yoon caused a brief stir internationally in January when he made an offhand comment about South Korea acquiring and deploying its own tactical nuclear weapons if the North Korean nuclear threat became more serious. The two allies’ increased emphasis on extended deterrence and increased frequency of appearance of U.S. strategic assets in and around the Korean Peninsula can be traced back to that comment. Seoul and Washington have also had polite but firm disagreements over the implementation of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act. Yoon has not made much headway in his foreign policy with the U.S., and he needs to show voters that he can deliver.

This summit will also take place a month after Seoul announced a compromise deal with Japan to resolve the wartime forced labor issue — a deal that critics are calling a “total defeat.” As surviving forced labor victims, activists and opposition parties are fiercely criticizing Yoon over the deal, Yoon needs the summit with Biden to go well to show voters that he made the right decision.