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US President Elect Donald Trump takes a question at a Jan. 11 press conference at Trump Tower in New York. (AP/Yonhap News)

Donald Trump takes office as President of the United States on Jan. 20. From his election campaign promises, and his statements and actions since being elected, many are predicting the biggest changes to the international order since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. We’re also very likely to see new developments in the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and East Asia and the North Korean nuclear issue.

Opinions on how realistic Trump’s foreign policy remarks are - or whether they are to some extent intended as bargaining chips - are divided even in the US. The broader outline, however, is clear: Trump plans to put what he sees as the US‘s interests at the top of the priority list and make sweeping changes to the existing order. It’s an approach that is taking concrete shape with attitudes favoring Russia and opposing China, the European Union, Islam, immigration, and international cooperation. About the only major countries Trump hasn‘t really made any issues about are the United Kingdom and Japan. His words and deeds are already generating discord and division all around. They’re drawing an outcry against the US not just from China, but from Western countries like Germany and France. The far right, for its part, has welcomed them. If this is the kind of order Trump is hoping for, it could leave not just the US but the entire global community the losers. Conflict and division cannot be the rule for the new order.

For now, trade frictions in particular are likely to escalate. It’s a situation tied to Trump’s tendency to view international relations through the lens of economic interests. He‘s already shown his mercantilist stripes with his repudiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the rest of the established trade order and his attempts to force businesses around the world to invest in the US. The impact on South Korea is sure to be especially significant if the trade war escalates with China, which has the biggest surplus with the US. Trump’s actions may help for a while in creating jobs at home, but they will be an obstacle to ongoing economic development for the US and the rest of the world.

For South Korea, there is now a greater imperative to step up its own balanced diplomacy efforts. To begin with, we need to prepare ourselves for the political uncertainty a deeper US-China rivalry will bring to the Korean Peninsula and East Asia. Unless we find our center and proceed in a balanced way, we’re going to find ourselves with less and less room to maneuver. There’s also a greater need than ever to go back to the drawing board on deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system on the Korean Peninsula. It‘s crucial that we get the Trump administration to play an active part in a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. The Trump administration doesn’t appear all that motivated to make a resolution its priority, and if we stand around waiting for it to move, the situation is very likely to become one of entrenched antagonism between South Korea, the US, and Japan on one side and North Korea, China, and Russia on the other. We would also be better off taking action ourselves on alliance and trade issues like the increase in South Korea‘s share of US Forces Korea station costs, the transfer of wartime operational control, and greater trilateral military and security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo, rather than letting ourselves get caught in a climate where the US takes the helm.

Ironically, the Trump administration’s inauguration could be a moment for the other countries of the world to think once again about their own interests. Whatever the case, the US has responsibility as a superpower for keeping peace around the world and harmonizing its own interests with those of other countries. That‘s all the more true for East Asia, where the economic and military powers need to work together to build a new order.

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