President Lee Jae Myung has long pushed for stronger homegrown defences, yet Donald Trump’s move has sparked alarm in some quarters

At their first summit, in August last year, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung told Donald Trump: “If you, Mr President, become the peacemaker, then I will assist you as the pacemaker.”

The remark at the Oval Office captured the thrust of Lee’s approach to the North: dial down the military posturing and make repeated peace overtures to revive dialogue, even if they have been consistently rejected by Pyongyang largely over Seoul’s insistence on denuclearisation.