THE NEW AMERICAN EXPORT — The U.S. has long exported its cultural products to South Korea, flexing its soft power within the country through Hollywood products and academic exchanges. It now appears to be exporting something different — Donald Trump’s politics of defiance and norm-breaking. President Yoon Suk Yeol, the country’s politically troubled leader, is increasingly utilizing the American president-elect’s legal and political tactics in a desperate attempt to evade the consequences of a botched attempt to impose martial law in December. Although the imposition of martial law — declared out of frustration against an opposition party that had slashed his budget plans and impeached his allies — lasted less than six hours, the move has thrown the country into political unrest. Yoon ended up getting impeached by the National Assembly and stripped of his presidential powers, and his fate remains in the hands of the Constitutional Court, which will review the decision in the coming months. Meanwhile, Yoon is under criminal investigation for insurrection, and a warrant has been issued to detain him. Yet he’s been resisting arrest by blocking off the entrance to his residence with his security personnel. As he remains hidden from the public eye, he and his legal team have increasingly grown bolder in their attacks against the legal system and the opposition party and their attempts to dodge accountability — moves that closely resemble Trump’s tactics when he was accused of insurrection. This isn’t the first time a parallel between Yoon and Trump has been made: When Yoon first took office in 2022, some had called him the “Trump of Korea” because of his reputation for speaking off the cuff and promises of populist policies that were meant to recruit young male voters unhappy with their lack of upward mobility. Yoon’s most blatant attempt to trace Trump’s path is his use of the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling for his own defense. In July, the Supreme Court granted presidents broad immunity for official acts while in office — a decision that gave Trump leverage against the charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Under that same logic, Yoon argues that his martial law declaration was within his constitutional rights as president and immune to prosecution. While it isn’t uncommon for lawyers to bring up rulings from other nations in their defense, it’s unlikely it will hold much weight in court: South Korea’s Constitution has made it clear that sitting presidents are not immune to insurrection or treason charges. Yoon’s more effective legal and political move, however, appears to be the claims of election fraud. Trump sowed doubt about his 2020 loss by questioning the election’s legitimacy and using it as a justification for radical action. Those conspiracy theories have become a powerful glue that have bonded his supporters together. And while far-right Korean conspiracy theorists have raised doubts about elections in the past — especially after the general election in April that handed a massive win to the opposition party — Yoon is now channeling that sentiment into questions about the legitimacy of the National Assembly and framing himself as a savior. “How can the public trust election results when the computer system that manages elections, the core of democracy, is so sloppy?” Yoon said in a public speech just days after his martial law declaration as a means of justification. In response, Yoon’s most dedicated supporters have waved signs saying “Stop the Steal” in pro-Yoon rallies — a nod to the MAGA movement’s rallying cry and the historically strong alliance between American and Korean conservatives, which dates back to the Korean War and the fight against communism. “They just refuse to make the connections between their own kind of conspiratorial beliefs and reality. Just the inability to do that, I think, is the real parallel,” said Karl Friedhoff, an Asia studies fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Yoon and his supporters wouldn’t be the only ones to draw lessons in resistance from Trump. In Brazil, thousands of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters attacked official buildings in the country’s capital after he lost reelection in 2022, drawing close comparisons to the Jan. 6 Capitol attacks led by Trump followers. For those watching from the U.S., it all seems too familiar. “The best case scenario is that [Yoon] slowly starts to peel his supporters back from their support for impeachment,” said Friedhoff. “There will be consequences, but he’s certainly going to try to delay them for as long as possible.” If Yoon’s rhetoric — the kind that offers a sinister view of the political establishment and presents himself as the solution — seems familiar, it may be because it so closely resembles Trump’s own dark framing. In his speech declaring martial law , Yoon called the country a “drug paradise,” the National Assembly “a den of criminals” and concluded that “Korea faces a fate that is never strange even if it collapses immediately” — charged words that echo Trump’s declarations that the U.S. is a “failing nation” and the left is “crooked” and treasonous. And like MAGA supporters, Yoon’s base has been riled up by the president’s words, parroting his claims while taking to the streets in protest against his arrest. Yoon, however, may not have the same political staying power as Trump, despite all the parallels: He isn’t an inspiring orator and doesn’t have the same hold over his followers, said S. Nathan Park, a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft following Korean politics. “He doesn’t have a good way out,” Park said. “He might get arrested soon. He might get arrested later, but I just do not see how he can avoid being removed from the office.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s authors at ckim@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ck_525 .
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