Moon Jae-in was elected as the new president of South Korea on Tuesday, May 9. He gets to take over in office right away since he is following the impeachment of South Korea’s last president, Park Geun-hye. Geun-hye was a very conservative leader who was impeached following a corruption scandal.

Jae-in is not a very conservative leader. The last time there was a leader in South Korea who wasn’t conservative was nearly a decade ago. Jae-in and his Democratic party vow to have a new, more positive era in South Korea. He has stated that he isn’t sure if the U.S. should have military bases in South Korea. As president of the United States, Donald Trump is putting as much pressure on their nation and leader as the U.S. has ever put on Kim Jong Un and North Korea. Jae-in has stated that he wants to try to fix the relationship that South Korea has with North Korea, creating a more peaceful Korean peninsula. The border between North and South Korea is currently the most guarded border in the world.  

Marcus Conway, senior, said, “Having Moon as president can worsen our ties with South Korea and inevitably be bad for the U.S. and its fight against North Korea.” Conway brought up the point that this very well could worsen our ties with South Korea, even though the White House has already congratulated Jae-in on winning the election. Landry Blunk, senior, said, “It is a good thing they got a president that won’t want to go to war. We might be able to have some peace.” Max Creamer, senior, had a similar view point to Conway. Creamer said, “This is bad for the United States, and I genuinely believe that with Trump having a completely different viewpoint then Moon, we will lose our ties to South Korea.”