RELEASE | Trump is Right to be Upset with South Korea’s Lee

For Immediate Release
August 18, 2026

CONTACTS:
Oleg Atbashian
[email protected]

Trump is Right to be Upset with South Korea’s Lee – But Has Plenty of Other Reasons, and a Better and More Desirable Response

C.P.D.C. Sponsors Open Letter to POTUS
Urging Intervention to Free Amb. Tan

WASHINGTON, D.C.— President Trump has expressed frustration with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jae Myung, over his unwillingness to help the U.S. in the Strait of Hormuz. In response, American participation in annual military exercises with the Republic of Korea has been cut back.

Mr. Trump is right to be upset with Lee, but has plenty of other reasons — and a more pointed and desirable vehicle for expressing it. The South Korean president is a Communist, fraudulently elected and moving aggressively to transform his country from a thriving, pro-American democracy into a despotic state aligned with Beijing and Pyongyang.

As a new open letter to our President sponsored by the Committee on the Present Danger: China makes clear, he can and should rebuke Lee by insisting on the freeing of a former top Trump diplomat, Ambassador Morse Tan being held hostage in Seoul for speaking truthfully a year ago in Washingon about Lee’s dangerous policy predilictions and the threat they pose to freedom in the RoK and the bilateral alliance. That is a personal affront to President Trump and evidence of unacceptable hostility toward this country and must be repudiated and ended at once.

CONTACTS: 

To interview representatives of the CPDC, contact Oleg Atbashian, [email protected]._______
Read More at Committee on the Present Danger: China