President Biden on Friday announced security and economic commitments following the first formal summit between the U.S., Japan and South Korea.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida joined Biden at Camp David for the one-day summit.
Among the commitments leaders made while at the presidential retreat in Maryland was establishing a hotline where the countries will “share information and coordinate our responses whenever there is a crisis in the region or affecting any one of our countries,” Biden said.
From The Hill’s Laura Kelly: “The three democratic countries share grave, mutual concerns about China’s pursuit of domination in the military, technology, economic and diplomatic arenas, and equally acute threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.”
- Ahead of the summit, an administration official said the hotline commitment “is not a formal alliance commitment. It is not a collective defense commitment that is lifted from an early Cold War Security Treaty.”
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin had earlier criticized what he called attempts “to form various exclusive groups and cliques and to bring bloc confrontation into the Asia-Pacific region.”
The U.S., Japan and South Korea will also launch a “supply chain early warning system” pilot that will “alert our nations to disruptions of certain products and materials,” Biden said, “like critical minerals or batteries.”
Biden announced a “trilateral expert exchange” supporting the U.S. Cancer Moonshot initiative as well.
