The ‘vision’ that emerged from Camp David in 2023 was unique in many aspects. It explicitly acknowledged the interlinked security of the three countries and gave special focus to institutionalization, seeking to insulate the partnership against dramatic political change. The agenda was also broadened to include new areas –such as disaster relief, humanitarian responses and development finance – to focus the partnership on providing benefits to each the three countries, and to others in the Indo-Pacific region.
This paper argues that the four areas of trilateral cooperation that emerged from Camp David can serve as a guide for policymakers and officials seeking to keep up the momentum amid the current challenges. The measures under each area can be tailored to the domestic priorities of each country.
1. Convergence of threat perceptions and a ‘commitment to consult’
The fundamental logic behind trilateralism – creating integrated deterrence to check China’s assertiveness and North Korean adventurism, while deepening ties among allies – remains unchanged. But the three governments are now focusing on different means and processes for achieving the ends. For this reason, the strategic rationale that has guided trilateral cooperation so far needs to be updated. A revised case must be made for the importance of trilateralism for all three countries, in a language that suits the domestic priorities of each.
Recommendation: Update the vision and purpose of trilateral partnership to reflect the current US administration’s priorities and asks.
Japan and South Korea must use the trilateral partnership as a platform to showcase themselves as able allies, willing to share the burden of maintaining deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. The emphasis on burden-sharing in the US National Security strategy published in December 2025 makes this all the more important. They must emphasize that the trilateral enhances US power projection in the Indo-Pacific by allowing the US to send strategic, deterrent signals to China and North Korea through allied cooperation. Japan and South Korea have the resources and strategic alignment to shape the region in favour of the US, and therefore the trilateral partnership.
All three countries must rethink the role of values as the coalescing factor and instead focus on shared interests such as the maintenance of freedom of navigation and overflight in the Indo-Pacific. The Biden administration framed trilateral cooperation as a union of democracies in a global tussle with autocratic rivals. However, any future cooperation that continues to emphasize democracy in this way would not only come across as hypocritical, but could actively undermine the partnership’s credibility – not least due to President Yoon’s declaration of martial law in South Korea and President Trump’s assault on democratic principles and values in the US.
A more equitable and sustainable partnership in the long term would benefit US, Japanese and South Korean interests. Emphasizing basic, shared interests will ground the trilateral in more consistent propositions that have broader appeal, both within the three countries and to other countries in the Indo-Pacific. A shift in emphasis would also create space for the three countries to cooperate with non-democracies in the region on specific, shared interests.
Finally, the trilateral partners must develop a core agenda focused on delivering tangible benefits to the three economies. That agenda should centre around defence and security, alongside other dimensions of economic security and technology. The agenda items must begin with issues where there is already a significant alignment, such as increasing interoperability among the three militaries and making supply chains more resilient. Given the sheer number of policy uncertainties in all three countries, focusing on a solid core will make their partnership more resilient against erratic changes of policy. Adding other items to the existing agenda, such as health and clean energy cooperation, would only open it up to more criticism.
The vision must, therefore, put special emphasis on how trilateral cooperation is the most viable way to achieve integrated deterrence among the three countries, across the issues and areas that matter most to US, Japanese and South Korean national security interests.
2. Connecting the bureaucracies to institutionalize trilateral partnership
Bureaucratic enmeshing will likely be slowed down by the recent governmental changes in each country but not stopped entirely. Meetings of top-level leaders, especially at the head of state level, will become less frequent. While the foreign ministers of the three countries have met each other three times in 2025, others due to meet annually (including the respective national security advisers, and the ministers of defence, commerce and industry and finance) have yet to do so. Political uncertainty in South Korea during the first half of 2025 and the lack of bureaucratic capacity in the US were contributory factors. Nonetheless, these meetings are crucial to set the vision for cooperation on new agenda items, especially on areas where the three countries have previously been hesitant to coordinate.
Recommendation: Advance institutionalization through continued working-level
cooperation on areas of convergence.
In the absence of regular top-level meetings and a lack of high-level political will, policymakers on all three sides need to drive cooperation and ensure that the higher baseline established since Camp David becomes self-sustaining. If the momentum of early 2025 were to continue, it could prevent the group from atrophying due to lack of political attention. Dialogue and deliberations will be of interest to all three countries, as it will keep them informed on the others’ strategic thinking and provide critical information for operating in an increasingly uncertain world. An expansion of this kind of working-level exchange may even be the best-case outcome for trilateral cooperation.
To ensure continued engagement at the working level, the officials must focus on delivering symbolic victories in the medium term, with the overall goal of preserving and bolstering the existing framework of cooperation while revamping messaging to suit the domestic priorities of the three countries. In the short term, meanwhile, officials can continue working-level cooperation on areas of convergence like cybersecurity and military training, pushing the importance of trilateral integration from the bottom upwards.
There are, however, concerns about the potency of a grouping that would depend on lower-level working, without much top–down guidance, especially as the Trump administration continues to hollow out the US bureaucracy. Leader-level strategic guidance is necessary to signal continued commitment and prioritization. Nevertheless, officials from the three foreign ministries and militaries have continued to meet despite domestic uncertainty. These meetings must be used to indicate the importance of trilateral partnership to audiences in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. They must involve a broader set of stakeholders, including Japanese and South Korean civil society. Specific recommendations on how to achieve these goals include:
- Define and expand the mandate of the secretariat. Even though a secretariat with a rotational head exists, its mandate remains unclear. The secretariat should take the lead in coordinating the various activities of the trilateral, setting its agenda and monitoring the delivery of projects. Since the trilateral spans multiple sectors, delivery of priorities requires cross-ministry collaboration both within and among the three countries. Officials recognize the limited capacity of their respective national bureaucracies to undertake a ‘whole-of-government’ approach without a central coordinating body.
- Continue to convene regular meetings at the working level to build trust and devise operational strategies, without necessarily seeking a meeting of the heads of state. Diligent, behind-the-scenes diplomacy and joint work can help minimize disagreement over issues that may appear due to top-level policy divergence.
- Set an early date for the meetings of the three defence ministers and commerce/industry ministers. These meetings are supposedly annual, but have yet to take place. Ministerial meetings are critical in advancing cooperation in functional areas of greatest convergence.
- Push for holding regular meetings of the different working groups, and set clear goals for each. While high-level talks may be susceptible to the diplomatic climate in Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, lower-level exchanges can be helpful and productive in developing practical cooperation.
3. Deepening partnership in defence and security
Each of the steps outlined under this section of the Camp David vision (see Box 1) was driven by a common understanding of the degree and prioritization of threats from China and North Korea in the Indo-Pacific. The three leaders were able to enhance cooperation in areas where the three still had strategic convergence, although they did shy away from promoting cooperation on matters over which there were diverging perceptions – for instance, the reluctance of South Korea to take focus away from the Korean peninsula and ‘provoke’ China meant that table-top exercises did not focus solely on the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.
Recommendation: Identify tangible ‘wins’ in defence and security to demonstrate the practical benefits of cooperation.
The future of security and defence ties among the three countries will depend on the alignment of threat perception and prioritization of those threats in the Indo-Pacific. Despite the current lack of alignment, the three countries should instead focus on deliverables that can still deepen defence and security ties, without necessarily requiring a strict alignment of threat perceptions. Specific recommendations are as follows:
- Enhance the missile data-sharing mechanism by improving accuracy and expanding coverage. Information-sharing on missile launches by North Korea has been a significant achievement of trilateral cooperation. Improving the quality of the information shared will directly benefit the national security of all three countries by checking North Korean adventurism. The three countries should continue upgrading technology to make information transfers more efficient, updating domestic legislation to make intelligence-sharing easier, and working to expand the geographic coverage of monitoring beyond the Korean peninsula.
- Establish formal connections at the operational level between the two alliance structures. Practical steps should include stationing liaison officers at the respective alliance commands in Seoul and Tokyo, and putting those at INDOPACOM headquarters in Hawaii in proximity. At present, the US–South Korea and US–Japan alliances work independently of each other. Meanwhile, the degree of coordination between the liaison officers at INDOPACOM is unclear. Formalizing connections will enhance joint communication and collective response mechanisms in case of any contingency.
- Provide capacity-building assistance in maritime security to Southeast Asian and Pacific Island countries under the Trilateral Maritime Security and Law Enforcement Cooperation frameworks. Steps could include coastguard cooperation and training of officials, building on pre-existing networks and capacity. Japan has sought to enhance the security and deterrence capabilities of like-minded countries in the region, especially in Southeast Asia, through its Official Security Assistance (OSA) framework, while the Yoon administration in South Korea sought to increase its engagement with the Pacific Islands. The two countries can use these pre-existing capacities as a basis for coordinated efforts in the Indo-Pacific, demonstrating their willingness to share the burden with the US. Future projects could focus on enhancing maritime domain-awareness across the region by improving the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities of like-minded nations.
- Establish a crisis communication mechanism between the national security agencies or foreign ministries to allow for real-time exchanges of information. The possibility of conflict spillovers in the region is increasing, making joint, coordinated responses even more important. Quick communication is crucial in a time of crisis. Under the Biden administration, talks of a crisis line of communication between the national security agencies of the three countries could not be completed. The three countries should pick up the discussions as a matter of urgency.
- Continue to hold trilateral discussions and table-top exercises to determine a tripartite response to a regional crisis. Those discussions may not have to involve joint contingency planning. However, Japan and South Korea should not be seen by the US as mere ‘rear’ areas, especially since North Korean ballistic missiles can threaten all three countries simultaneously. By building informal coordination mechanisms for these dialogues to take place, the countries can eventually draw up plans for greater integration.
4. Broadening partnership to economic security and technology
Economic competition and coercion from China have compelled the US, Japan and South Korea to work collectively on issues such as supply-chain resilience and research and development. Through the steps identified in the Camp David vision, the three countries focused on enhancing mutual resilience and competitiveness with China. The extent to which the dialogues and mechanisms led to meaningful, actionable steps remains unclear for a variety of reasons. The time horizon for the realization of these mechanisms is longer than two years. Moreover, policies aimed at enhancing domestic competitiveness in one country can harm the competitiveness of others, including allies, as was seen with the allied discontent over Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. These obstacles have prevented a deepening of partnerships on economic and technology security.
Future cooperation on economic security and technology depends on the three countries overcoming the challenges highlighted above, along with new ones emerging as a result of the Trump administration’s economic policies. Under Trump, the US’s protectionist tendencies have only been accentuated. By some estimates, the average tariff rate in US trade has reached 20 per cent, as opposed to 2.5 per cent last year. The erratic imposition of tariffs and the lack of exemption for allies have created a trust deficit between the US and Japan and South Korea, which jeopardizes the prospects for trilateral partnership on matters related to economic security and technology.
Cooperation on economic security was driven by a desire to ensure that the US and its allies retain prominence in these sectors over China. However, since taking office, the Trump administration has shown no consistent position on China when it comes to matters of economic security. Such policy uncertainty need not necessarily be a barrier. In the short and medium terms at least, most of the cooperation on economic security and technology between the three countries will happen in bilateral settings. Nevertheless, opportunities for trilateral partnership still exist.
Recommendation: Focus on key deliverables in economic security and technology.
In particular, policymakers should:
- Institutionalize the Trilateral Economic Security Dialogue and the Trilateral Export Control Dialogue through biannual meetings. Bilateral economic tensions between the three countries, mostly due to President Trump’s tariff threats have become a major stumbling block in trilateral economic cooperation. These mechanisms, however, can become avenues to bridge some gaps to foster dialogues and ensure some policy coordination on these critical issues. Their importance became clearer than ever after China imposed restrictions on the export of rare earth metals in April 2025.
- Work to secure the critical minerals supply chains of all three countries. The US, Japan and South Korea can make their critical minerals supply chains more resilient by sharing technology and jointly investing in refining projects. They can also leverage the Minerals Security Partnership to develop and employ coordinated steps.
- Find pathways to boost cooperation in the shipbuilding industry. Areas of cooperation could include joint maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of US shipping, co-production of commercial vessels and/or warships and increased foreign investment to boost the efficiency of US shipyards, with particular focus on dual-use shipping. Both Japan and South Korea offer unique strengths in the shipbuilding industry: while Japan can more readily contribute to MRO of US-owned ships, South Korea has greater overall production capacity. A tangible example of cooperation in this area is a $5 billion investment by the South Korean firm Hanwha in the Philadelphia shipyard with the aims of improving the efficiency of shipbuilding processes at the facility and increasing capacity.
Trilateral cooperation is not an inevitability. Rather, it is the product of decades of concerted diplomacy and strategic focus that have enabled the US, Japan and South Korea to look beyond past grievances and misalignments. The external security environment in the region – where China and North Korea are growing increasingly assertive – proves a clear rationale for a coordinated partnership between the US, Japan and South Korea. However, the durability of the mechanisms established since Camp David will ultimately depend on continued political will, as well as determination among policymakers to recast the partnership and demonstrate its relevance in changed circumstances. If those goals can be achieved, the trilateral partnership can help secure deterrence, peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific for years to come.
