When South Korean President Lee Jae-myung presented Donald Trump with a golden crown during his October visit to Gyeongju, American progressives recoiled.
On “The Daily Show,” Desi Lydic said the gesture was “not helping” efforts to steer Trump away from a “king” image. Six weeks later, Trump’s National Security Strategy made Seoul’s calculation clear: the crown bought breathing room.
While Washington now demands South Korea expand US Forces Korea’s “strategic flexibility” for Taiwan contingencies and commit vastly more resources to collective defense, Seoul secured tariff relief, a nuclear submarine deal and—most importantly—time to resist being dragged into a Taiwan conflict it wants no part of.
As someone who joined “No Kings” protests in the US, I understand why American progressives recoiled. It looked feudal and submissive, everything that many of us oppose. But from Seoul’s vantage point, this was not submission.
It was the latest chapter in a very old playbook: manage the powerful so the small can survive. This deserves a second look—especially now, as Lee Jae Myung’s administration pursues what he calls “pragmatic diplomacy centered on national interests” while navigating unprecedented US pressure.
Reactions in South Korea cut across usual political lines and leaned on dark historical humor: “the muscle memory of a millennium of tribute,” and “you Americans elected him; we still have to survive.” A scroll through the Korean comments under that viral video reveals the mood.
To understand this, consider Trump’s popular nickname in Korea: Teu-jjok-i. It plays on the term Geum-jjok-i (“Golden Child”), from a hit reality show about children with severe behavioral challenges, where the point is not punishment but behavior management for the family’s welfare. In that frame, a gold object is theater aimed at a status-focused figure.
You do not try to reason through every meeting with a volatile power holder. You structure incentives to secure what your country needs—especially when those needs include avoiding entanglement in regional conflicts beyond the Korean Peninsula.
The mockery in the US also stung for a practical reason. Commentators saying South Korea should just “pay what Trump wants” hit a raw nerve. The framework announced in Gyeongju includes US$350 billion in gradual investments, cooperation on shipbuilding and tariff relief for South Korean automakers.
No final agreement has been signed, but the optics mattered: Seoul demonstrated willingness to pay while securing concessions that Trump values. Yet as Asia Times reported, Trump continues to push for greater defense cost-sharing, reframing the alliance as a transactional arrangement rather than a security partnership.
That number touches an even deeper memory: the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Seoul’s depleted foreign reserves forced a humiliating bailout, mass layoffs and what many still call a “lost decade.” Being told to “pay up” by the world’s wealthiest power does not sound like a joke. It sounds like a rich man shaking down a poorer one, demanding the family’s savings as pocket change.
The crown—mocked as medieval—was precisely this kind of risk management: theatrical deference to secure substantive autonomy. Trump authorized South Korea to build a nuclear-powered submarine—to be constructed in Philadelphia.
Whether this proves feasible remains uncertain, but the symbolism was immediate: Seoul gained a deterrence capability focused on North Korea and China’s submarine fleets, not Taiwan. Whether this gamble is wise is fair to debate. Calling it anti-democratic misses the point.
South Korea chose a path that may feel humiliating to many American readers but looks pragmatic to many Koreans across the spectrum. Democracy looks different when your country faces a nuclear-armed neighbor across a demilitarized zone and depends on a top trading partner that can apply real economic pressure.
The United States can afford ideological consistency. South Korea has to stay strategically alive.
For more than six centuries, Confucian Korea taught that a ruler’s right to govern comes from service to the people. A leader who demands tribute while ignoring others’ welfare is unfit to rule.
When Koreans offered Trump the crown, they were not abandoning that principle. They were holding up a mirror to American power, saying, in effect, “you reject kings at home, yet you act like emperors abroad,” while carving out space to protect their families and industries.
What looked like flattery to American progressives was risk management to Seoul. The crown secured breathing room to resist Washington’s broader regional demands—demands that, as Asia Times noted, risk pushing South Korea to the frontline of great power confrontation.
If Americans truly reject kingship, the harder question is not why South Koreans staged one awkward ceremony. It is why we are so quick to expect weaker nations to bend, and so ready to label their survival tactics as fealty, when those tactics are often the price of living in a dangerous neighborhood.
The crown bestowed upon Trump was not a gift. It was a mirror—and a down payment on the strategic autonomy Seoul will need as Washington’s demands intensify. American progressives who mocked the ceremony should ask why they expect weaker nations to bend, and why they mistake survival tactics for surrender.
Jiwon Yoon is a writer and former tenured associate professor of media studies based in the Seattle area, focusing on Korean democracy, history, and culture.
Jihyun Lee is a webtoon artist and lecturer at Jeonju University in South Korea with undergraduate training in history. Together, they publish “Understanding Korea — One Story at a Time”, a weekly newsletter exploring Korean culture and history for international audiences.
