American ‘Ally’ Imposes Travel Ban on American Ambassador
South Korea’s hard-Left regime is preventing former U.S. Ambassador Morse Tan from leaving the country. He is there as part of an election monitoring team. He has criticized election irregularities and the communist tendencies of the current government, and as a result, he is subject to a travel ban. This is scandalous behavior from an American treaty ally. It is a direct insult and challenge to President Trump and must be dealt with sharply by the American government.
Bad things happen while Washington’s attention is diverted. While Washington is fighting to preserve American security by eliminating threats from Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, international drug traffickers and criminal cartels, China, and others, South Korea has been overtaken by a hard-Left Communist party that is more interested in pleasing Pyongyang and Beijing than in anything Washington has to say.
A recent opinion article in The Wall Street Journal makes the case that South Korea is taking a hard left turn against America. The authors detail a serious intelligence breach, a South Korean raid on the offices of an American military base, and tough attacks against American companies as evidence of Seoul’s hostility to American interests. They point out the closeness of Korea’s ruling party to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Those incidents pale in comparison to today’s legal persecution of President Trump’s former Ambassador-At-Large for Global Criminal Justice, Morse Tan. Ambassador Tan is an accomplished law professor and expert on international law and human rights. Ambassador Tan is a vocal critic of the new Korean government, but they treat him as an enemy of the state rather than a critic.
There is a solid reason for their harsh treatment of him. He has committed the cardinal sin of telling the truth about their history and background. The Minjoo Party (“Democratic Party”) is led by former student radicals who firebombed and occupied the American Cultural Center in their college days. They have never apologized.
The current president, Lee Jae-myung, was under criminal investigation for sending over $8 million secretly to North Korea. His election has paused the investigation because he has presidential immunity while in office. His party, which has nearly two-thirds control of the National Assembly, is trying to pass a bill dismissing the charges against him. They also are considering amending the Constitution to end the single-term limit for the presidency and allow him to serve unlimited terms.
Morse Tan has called out these departures from democratic norms and has also drawn attention to the close ties between the Minjoo Party and the CCP. After he led an election observation team for last year’s parliamentary elections, he has been relentless in calling out election irregularities in South Korea. “South Korean elections are as corrupt as those of Venezuela,” he told me. “It’s not a government we’re dealing with here. We’re dealing with an anti-American criminal gang.”
Over 40 years of diplomatic experience has taught me that the one thing communist and socialist governments cannot tolerate is having their repression pointed out in public. That is especially true during the early period when they still are masquerading as “democratic” movements. The current regime in Seoul still wants to be treated as an American ally and still hopes for preferential trade treatment. They fear Tan’s criticism will damage their standing as a trade and treaty ally.
President Lee promised President Trump last year to invest $350 billion in the American economy to avoid the Trump tariffs. But President Lee went back to Korea and, speaking to Koreans, immediately disavowed his promise. Since then, the Koreans have been dragging their feet in implementing the investment. They did nothing until the administration opened a Section 301 investigation against them earlier this year.
Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 allows the president to impose tariffs on any country found to be engaging in unfair trade practices. It is a fully recognized presidential power that cannot be curbed by activist judges or a hostile Congress. Opening the investigation spurred Seoul into action, but they seem to be slow-rolling the investment still, hoping to avoid tariffs as long as possible. It is likely they believe they can outlast President Trump and play him until he is distracted or out of office.
Administration and congressional policymakers must realize that South Korea is no longer governed by our allies. The Minjoo Party has been allied closely with North Korea and the CCP for decades.
Ambassador Morse Tan is exposing their charade before they are ready to shed their masks completely. Preventing him from traveling back home is the panicked reaction of someone caught in a shameful act. The American government needs to crack down on South Korea’s hostility to American interests. We need to demand the immediate release of Ambassador Morse Tan and immediate fulfillment of the promises President Lee made in Washington last summer.
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