On August 11th, 2020, Joe Biden announced Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate for the bid for the White House. The freshman Senator from California, Kamala Harris is the first Black woman and the first person of Asian descent to be selected for a vice presidential nomination by a major political party—and only the fourth woman in the U.S. history.
Although Senator Harris has entered a national office in 2017, she has been active on expressing her support for legislation related to U.S.-Korea relations. Throughout the 11 debates for the Democratic nominee for president in 2019 and 2020, Senator Harris also mentioned Korea more than any other candidates, including the former vice president Joe Biden.
Former vice president Joe Biden and California Senator Kamala Harris / Getty Images
In the Senate
Shortly after her election to the U.S. Senate, Senator Harris introduced a resolution supporting the goals and ideals of “Korean American Day” (S.Res. 373) on January 11th, 2018. It was the first time that such a resolution was introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives since 2005. Senator Harris also introduced a resolution to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest (S.Res. 147) also known as Sa-i-gu and successfully led it to unanimous passage.
For the rest of the 115th Congress and 116th Congress, Senator Harris largely voted in support of bolstering U.S.-Korea alliance, with the majority of the U.S. Senate, including the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 (S. 2736), North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act of 2017 (H.R. 2061), Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (H.R. 3364), a resolution commemorating Otto Frederick Warmbier and condemning the North Korean regime for their continued human rights abuses (S.Res. 623), as well as a number of resolutions expressing importance of U.S.-Korea alliance and U.S.-Korea-Japan trilateral coordination.
Since 2017, Senator Harris called for “a comprehensive strategy toward North Korea” and warned President Trump of any “pre-emptive strike on North Korea” in a number of ways, including by co-signing a letter to state that the President has no “legal authority” to do so.
In Interviews and Events
Over the 11 rounds of debates among the Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination between June 2019 and February 2020, there were a total of 21 exchanges that mentioned North Korea—among which 4 were from Senator Harris and 4 from Joe Biden. Most of the time, the candidates mentioned “North Korea” as one of the greatest threats to the national security and urged for a closer cooperation to address it with allies like “South Korea.” They also agreed that the North Korean regime is to be deterred and that they would take a different approach than President Trump.
In the September 2019 debate in Houston, Senator Harris mentioned “I am on — and I think the only person on this stage — the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee. We need a partner on the issue of North Korea.” In response to a question on North Korea in the November 2019 debate, as well, Senator Harris also emphasized that “[t]here are no concessions to be made,” called for resumptions of joint military exercises with South Korea “because they are in our best national security.”
The eventual Democratic nominee Joe Biden echoed these points throughout several debates. In January 2020, Biden refused to meet with North Korea without any preconditions. He also shared that he would “reignite the relationship between Japan and South Korea, and I would put enormous pressure, enormous pressure on China, because that’s also in their interests for them to put pressure on North Korea to cease and desist” (December 2019) and “reassign the relationship between Japan and Korea.” (February 2020)
“[W]e in fact should make sure that we begin to rebuild our alliances, which Trump has demolished, with Japan and South Korea,” Biden stated in the December 2019 debate in Los Angeles. This point was supported by several speakers at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, including Senator Harris who on Night 3 said “Joe, he believes we stand with our allies and stand up to our adversaries.” Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of State John Kerry, and Joe Biden himself reiterated this message on multiple occasions.
In an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations in August 2019, Senator Harris outlined her vision for engaging North Korea: “Ultimately, we can’t accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. But it’s clear that simply demanding complete denuclearization is a recipe for failure; we must work closely with our allies to contain and reverse the short-term threats posed by Pyongyang as we work toward that long-term goal. In any negotiations with North Korea, we must proceed with great skepticism given our past experiences. I would consider targeted sanctions relief to improve the lives of the North Korean people if the regime were to take serious, verifiable steps to roll back its nuclear program. And that relief would have to be immediately reversible were they to renege on their commitments.”
Doug Bandow, a Senior Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, however warns that any prediction especially on foreign policy at this point is “at best a matter of speculation.” He argues that “if Biden wins, his transition and the Moon government should immediately begin talking…It would be best for the Moon government and Biden administration to be on the same policy page, ready to act, at noon on January 20. The new U.S. president could most advance the prospects for peace by publicly encouraging the North to engage with Seoul.”
While Bandow foresees that Trump’s re-election will not lead to much change in the U.S. policy toward North Korea, Harry Kazianis of the Center for the National Interest offers a contrasting prediction by quoting a former Trump administration official: “Trump, if he wins a second term, that is, will leave Korea–mark my words and hold me to it. He hates, in his view, paying for a nation like South Korea’s defense. Even though that is not true by any means, that’s what he thinks. As he can’t connect that concept that having forces in Korea is a stabilizing force to deter North Korea as well as China, they are worth their weight in gold. He just can’t make that connection, and it’s really sad.”
On the Korean American Community
While she has remained largely critical of the Trump administration’s policy toward North Korea, Senator Harris has spoken up for undocumented immigrants over the years. On the Senate floor in 2017, she introduced a Korean American constituent from Irvine, CA named Eric Yang who was protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals to urge passage of the DREAM Act. In 2019, she invited Yang and another Korean American DACA recipient to the Democratic primary debate held on September 12th.
In a letter sent to the Korean American Grassroots Conference in 2017, Senator Harris reiterated her support for U.S.-Korea alliance: “The Republic of Korea remains one of United States’ most significant and closest allies. As our two nations continue to build on their relationship, I look forward to a promising future of deepened cultural, economic, and political ties…For all the work that you do, 진심으로 감사드립니다.”
