Karishma Vaswani, Columnist

South Korea Is Learning the Hard Truth About US Promises

March 16, 2026 at 4:00 PM UTC

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC's lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades.

An unreliable ally.
Source: AFP Photo/KCNA via KNS/Getty Images

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South Korea is getting a rude awakening about what happens when US priorities shift: Even long-standing alliances can start to look like relationships of convenience.

Any erosion of American reliability in the Indo-Pacific weakens confidence in Washington. It also strengthens China’s narrative that the US is unwilling to stay the course when its interests move elsewhere.