September 12, 2025
SEOUL – On Sept. 4, the mass arrest of around 300 Korean workers at the Hyundai-LG joint venture in the US state of Georgia jolted Koreans — an unexpected image of compatriots in shackles that many read as an affront to dignity and a breach of trust at the alliance’s core.
The pictures of workers in chains quickly reopened older wounds. The Korea-US alliance has survived war, coups and market shocks, yet it has also known moments when Koreans felt their faith was traded away to larger designs. Those memories matter because alliances ultimately rest on the belief that promises will be kept, that values will be honored and people will be treated with respect.
In 1905, the secret Taft-Katsura Agreement between the US and imperial Japan signaled Washington’s recognition of Japan’s control over Korea in exchange for Tokyo’s acceptance of US control over the Philippines. For Koreans, it was sovereignty bargained away by distant powers, without their consent.
In 1919, inspired by President Woodrow Wilson’s call for national self-determination, Koreans staged the March First Movement. They hoped American ideals would meet Korean courage and sacrifice. Instead, Washington stood aside as Japan crushed the uprising.
In 1949, the US withdrew troops over Seoul’s objections. Then Secretary of State Dean Acheson announced the core defense line in north-east Asia that excluded the Korean Peninsula. To Pyongyang, the “Acheson Line” looked like a green light to invade the South. Months later, war came, and millions were killed.
In 1972, the United States abruptly announced the withdrawal of the 7th Infantry Division amid secret US-China negotiations, without prior consultation with Seoul. Shocked at the prospect of abandonment by the US, President Park Chung-hee raced toward self-reliant defense, even including covert nuclear options. Koreans learned a cold lesson: If global strategy demanded it, the US would sideline allies.
In 1980, during the Gwangju Democratization Uprising, the United States watched as military strongmen seized power and crushed democratic aspirations. Even if Washington weighed stability and anticommunism more heavily at the time, the symbolism was unmistakable: The self-proclaimed champion of freedom appeared to condone authoritarian force.
In 2002, a US military vehicle killed two Korean schoolgirls. Koreans in despair expected an apology from the US and accountability for the tragedy; instead, there was none. Under the Status of Forces Agreement, jurisdiction was with the US military, whose investigation concluded it was an accident. Those involved in the tragedy faced no punishment. Candlelight protests swept the nation for months throughout Korea and the alliance trembled.
These episodes can be read like a ledger of trust: 1905, sovereignty betrayed; 1919, ideals abandoned; 1949, security forsaken; 1972, alliance sidelined; 1980, democracy ignored; 2002, justice denied. Each left a residue of doubt, a warning that trust casts a shadow. That is why the recent arrest in Georgia cut so deep. Koreans do not see factory workers alone; they see citizens of a country that sacrificed to keep this alliance strong. Against that history, chains do not register as mere “enforcement optics.” They register as a test: Do partners still see each other’s people as deserving not only legal protection but also dignity?
Americans will tell a different story. They will say the operation flowed from domestic politics and a hard line on immigration enforcement — a message to voters in America, not to allies. But alliances are not insulated from domestic theater; they are shaped by it. Bureaucratic explanations fade; what endures is the memory of Koreans in chains. Perspective matters. The alliance has endured seven decades because, when it counted, both sides chose steadiness over spirals. It has survived because deterrence was paired with dialogue, and because crises were met not with theatrical outrage but with careful, often invisible work. In that tradition, the response to the present shock should be deliberate, disciplined and bilateral.
The good news is that channels today are stronger than in the past. The personal rapport and communication lines established at the recent summit enabled unusually swift coordination. That is not sufficient, but it is a foundation. It shows that when trust at the top meets professionalism below, diplomacy still works. Some will say the alliance is a military pact first and everything else second. But the history above suggests the opposite. People-level trust is not a soft add-on; it is the hard core. It is what keeps legal disputes from becoming diplomatic crises and diplomatic crises from becoming strategic ruptures. Treat allies’ citizens with care, and the alliance grows more resilient. Treat them carelessly, and no number of communiques will mend the tear.
Korea, for its part, should avoid turning shock into a partisan spectacle. A cool head and a unified message — backed by specific fixes, not just demands — will do more for national dignity than a month of angry theatrics. The United States, for its part, should resist the reflex that sees every foreign-policy cost as bearable in the name of domestic signaling. In a world of contested narratives, credibility is a currency — and images like those from Georgia spend it very fast.
The alliance does not promise a world without problems. It promises that when problems happen, they will be corrected in ways consistent with shared values and sincerity. The measure of the Korea-US alliance has never been the absence of friction; it has been the presence of good faith. The way forward, then, is neither denial nor dramatics. It is to replace the picture of shackles with the practice of trust — to prove, again, that the alliance is not only a treaty among states, but a compact about how partners treat one another’s people. Trust is built in ordinary moments when power chooses restraint, when procedure yields to empathy and when allies remember how they survived the tough tests. In the end, the true test of an alliance is not what leaders proclaim at summits, but how each nation treats the other’s people when crises strike.
