U.S. lawmaker close to Trump "We are resetting Korea-U.S. relations... couple counseling, not divorce"

Senator McCormick: “We must fight China as one military force with our allies.”

(Washington = Yonhap News) Correspondent Jeong-gyu Hong = U.S. Senator Dave McCormick (Republican, Pennsylvania), a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said that the relationship between Korea and the U.S. is in the process of being 'reset' and that this is not divorce but couples counseling.

According to the Hudson Institute, a U.S. think tank, on the 18th (local time), Representative McCormick made this statement in a conversation with Mike Gallagher, former chairman of the House Special Committee on U.S.-China Strategic Competition, held in Washington, D.C. on the 16th.

“We are resetting relationships,” McCormick said. “When you reset relationships, there are hurt feelings and there is friction.”

He said, “Even in marriage, sometimes the balance is out of whack and one side tells the other that adjustments need to be made,” and emphasized that the Korea-U.S. relationship is “about couples receiving counseling, not divorce.”

“We need more from our Asian allies. The relationship has been imbalanced, and they acknowledge that,” he said, adding, “I think we are on the path to a much deeper and stronger relationship.”

Rep. McCormick recently returned to Korea after visiting Japan and Korea. In Korea, he visited the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and Hanwha Ocean's Geoje business site. He also met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun and Minister of National Defense Kang Shin-cheol.

Rep. McCormick cited Korea and Japan's promise of large-scale investment in the U.S. as a representative example of readjusting alliance relations and said, "I did not hear any controversy (during the meeting in Korea). The conversation was entirely focused on where to invest the funds and how to utilize them."

He also mentioned Korea's promise to purchase $25 billion in American military equipment and plans to increase the defense budget, and evaluated that "although it has not yet reached the necessary level, it is moving in a direction that meets its share of the burden."

Rep. McCormick argued that the United States and its allies must be able to innovate technology faster than China and produce more defense materials in the long term, and that "we must train, plan, and fight with our allies as one military force and one military capability."

“If we do this right, China will look at the Taiwan Strait every morning and conclude, ‘Not today,’” he said.