North Korea to Top Agenda as Biden Meets with South Korean President at White House

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - U.S. President Joe Biden is due to meet Friday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.  Moon is only the second world leader Biden has hosted since taking office in January.  The visit may be Moon’s final trip to the United States as head of state and the last chance to fulfill campaign pledges before his term ends.   

The discussions between the two leaders are set to occur just a few weeks after the Biden administration finalized its months-long review of North Korea policy, one that signals a departure from previous administrations by pursuing a “calibrated, practical approach,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.  This shift in rhetoric — one that strays from the Obama-era “strategic patience,” while refraining from making flashy deals — has yielded a “sense of calm” as Moon and Biden prepare to engage in talks, said Jean Lee, director of the Korea program at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.   “When you use that rhetoric, that fire and fury, it gives North Korea the justification to test, and when they have that, it means the arsenal gets that much stronger,” Lee said. “The steadiness consistently being exuded by the Biden administration is designed to avoid this escalation of tensions we saw in the early parts of the Trump presidency.”