Unification Minister Chung Dong-young dismissed calls for his removal, saying "what should be replaced is a biased view of the alliance." On his March remarks about a nuclear facility in Kusong, North Korea, and the resulting curbs on Korea-U.S. intelligence sharing, he said Washington had acted on "a misunderstanding and a wrong decision." Even as he moved to extinguish the controversy himself, insisting the alliance was intact, signs of strain have surfaced on several fronts, and calls for his replacement are now coming from the ruling party as well as the opposition.
Chung made the remarks at a hastily arranged news conference at the Government Complex in Seoul's Jongno District on the 12th, saying "the claim by parts of the opposition that the Korea-U.S. alliance has been damaged is entirely untrue." He called the opposition's demand for his dismissal "a 2026 version of red-baiting," and rejected criticism that he was too deferential toward North Korea, saying his posture was "neither high-handed nor submissive, but upright."
He also rebutted, point by point, the evidence cited as proof of friction in the alliance. On reports that National Intelligence Service Director Lee Jong-seok had sought to visit the United States in March but was turned away by Washington, Chung called the account "fake news that gets the facts wrong," adding that it was "a dictation of a story invented to attack the other side," referring to the Lee Jae-myung administration.
Chung also criticized as "a wrong decision" the U.S. move to restrict intelligence sharing with South Korea, citing a leak of classified information, after he referred to the Kusong nuclear facility in March. He noted that he had publicly mentioned the Kusong facility in July last year while serving as a lawmaker, arguing that "I was not a cabinet member at the time, so action should have been taken against the National Assembly or the Democratic Party of Korea." Chung said he had conveyed this "misunderstanding" to the U.S. State Department and the South Korean Embassy in Washington.
On differences between Seoul and Washington over foreign policy and security, he said "there is no U.S. ally that has no tension or conflict over security and trade issues," adding that "they all use national interest and autonomy as their yardstick, and so do we." Asked about reports of sharp disagreement among ministries at the National Security Council, he said "there is no progress in groupthink," explaining that "the NSC is where differing views are coordinated and reconciled."
On the land mine explosion in the Demilitarized Zone on the 21st of last month, Chung said "normal politics means discussing measures to prevent clashes in the DMZ so this never happens again, with the governing and opposition parties putting their heads together." He argued that the focus should be on resolving the underlying problem rather than on political sparring.
The opposition, however, has stepped up calls for him to resign or be dismissed. After Chung's news conference, People Power Party chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon called the remarks "brazen sophistry," saying the minister "fails to recognize the reality that the very existence of South Korea's unification minister is being used as a strategic asset by North Korea." Rep. Sung Il-jong of the PPP, a member of the National Assembly's National Defense Committee, said Chung "has already denied the Constitution and insulted the military, and has lost his qualifications to serve in South Korea's cabinet," adding that he was "only underscoring further the need for his removal."
Calls for a shake-up have also emerged within the ruling party. Rep. Park Jie-won of the Democratic Party of Korea, who served as NIS director under the Moon Jae-in administration, said on a broadcast on the 11th that "denying a visa to the leader of the governing party is a serious problem," referring to the recent suspension of a U.S. visa for Rep. Jung Chung-rae for a parliamentary audit. He added that "the United States will not back down like this" and that "the foreign policy and security team needs to be overhauled." Park, who like Chung and NIS Director Lee is classified as a proponent of greater autonomy from Washington, thus added his weight to the push for a shake-up.
Experts say the tangle of economic and security issues between Seoul and Washington needs to be unwound quickly. Kim Jae-chun, a professor at Sogang University's Graduate School of International Studies, said the friction "stems largely from U.S. administration complaints that South Korea is not delivering on its investment pledges," adding that "on top of that, the Coupang affair and Minister Chung's Kusong remarks have combined to spread a perception within the U.S. administration that the South Korean government is pro-China, anti-American and anti-business." Kim said Seoul should "move faster to execute the $20 billion annual ceiling on investment in the United States and provide support on the Strait of Hormuz, even if non-military," stressing the need to "restore a virtuous cycle in economic and security cooperation that has fallen into a vicious one."