At the end of January 2026, the United States once again became the focus of the global press, but the way it is written about in Seoul, Tokyo and Kyiv differs noticeably from the picture seen by the American reader. Against the backdrop of the killing of medic Alex Pretty by federal agents in Minneapolis, the mass "Free America Walkout" demonstrations and the escalation of immigration raids, domestic American turbulence has become a key topic for some South Korean and Japanese commentators. At the same time, a new wave of tariffs and a reframing of US strategy in the Indo‑Pacific are redefining the conversation in Asia about Washington as an ally and economic partner. For Ukraine, the US remains above all the main — but increasingly unpredictable — sponsor of the war against Russia, and every White House decision there is evaluated through the prism of state survival.
At the intersection of these threads arises a common question: how reliable is Washington — as a democracy, as a military guarantor and as an economic anchor? And although each country looks at the US through its own lens, the same word increasingly appears in South Korean, Japanese and Ukrainian discussions — "unpredictability."
The first major block of discussion is connected to the internal crisis of American democracy and the rise of police and immigration violence. In South Korea, a column by former Progressive (formerly Justice Party) lawmaker Ким Чон Дэ in Hankyoreh drew resonance; it was published under the striking headline "American democracy is dying, and it is being killed by people in masks." The author, known in Seoul as one of the harshest critics of the expansion of security forces' powers after South Korea’s 2024 "military coup" case, draws a direct parallel between the "anonymized" units deployed on the streets of Seoul and the federal ICE and border agents in Minneapolis who shot Alex Pretty during a raid on January 24, 2026. In his view, "anonymity is a tool for evading accountability to society," and the US, long seen as a model rule-of-law state, is now demonstrating to the world an "export of the model of uncontrolled force" — a conclusion that sounds especially alarming to a Korean reader against the backdrop of their own battles with the legacy of military regimes. Ким Чон Дэ’s column in Hankyoreh directly links the current protests against immigration raids and the "Free America Walkout" to the degradation of American institutional control, asking: can a country that cannot rein in its own security forces still claim the role of arbiter of democracy in the world?
In Japan, the topic of Pretty’s killing and the subsequent protests is covered more soberly, but leading liberal outlets such as Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi show a line in which the US serves as an example of how "order for the sake of security" gradually erodes civil liberties. On the analytical portal Nippon.com, although the primary attention is on US foreign policy, authors increasingly mention American domestic conflicts as a factor weakening Washington’s moral leadership. One review emphasizes that the mass "Free America Walkout" actions held on January 20 across the US and in several European countries are perceived in Japan as "a new stage of a protracted crisis of trust" between society and institutions in the US, a crisis that began with the protests of 2020. At the same time, Japanese writers avoid accusatory rhetoric: for them, American democratic instability is not a reason for schadenfreude but a reminder of their own vulnerability to rising right‑wing populism and to increased police powers domestically.
The Ukrainian discussion of the US internal crisis is almost entirely subordinated to the question: how will all this affect American aid to Kyiv. Ukrainian commentators actively cite American polls showing a decline in the share of US citizens who are "extremely or very concerned" about a possible Ukrainian defeat, and a rise in the number of Republicans who consider support for Kyiv excessive. In Ukrainian media this is linked to general political polarization and American fatigue with foreign wars — a trend in which episodes such as Pretty’s killing and the subsequent clashes around the Metro Surge operation become symbols of "America turning inward." Ukrainian analysts warn that if the internal crisis of democracy in the US continues, it will not only reduce support for Ukraine but also undermine the very idea of a "democratic world" upon which Kyiv’s diplomacy relies.
The second important motif is economic nationalism and a new wave of trade conflicts, especially acutely felt in South Korea. Donald Trump’s January 27 announcement of plans to raise tariffs on a broad range of South Korean goods — from cars to pharmaceuticals — from 15 to 25 percent came as a shock to the market and to the political class in Seoul. As The Guardian noted, the president’s claim that "the Korean parliament is not fulfilling its part of the historic 2025 deal" immediately sent shares of leading automakers tumbling and forced the government to convene emergency meetings and prepare a delegation to Washington. For South Korean observers this is not just another episode of "Trump’s trade wars," but a symptom of a deeper problem: the US is behaving less and less like a predictable economic partner even toward key allies.
In South Korean business and general political publications the reaction was split. Conservative media emphasize that Seoul itself erred by treating the 2025 agreement as a "memorandum of understanding" that did not require immediate ratification. In this key, the US appears as a tough but rational partner using its economic weight to exert pressure — an approach allies "should have gotten used to" after the first trade clashes of the Trump‑1 era. Left‑liberal outlets, however, see in the developments confirmation of the thesis that Washington increasingly thinks of alliance relations transactionally: security in exchange for economic concessions, large investment packages in exchange for tariff loopholes. For them the tariff hikes are a continuation of a logic in which the US demands not only higher defense budgets from allies but also a redistribution of trade advantages in favor of American producers.
In Japan, similar concerns are voiced more mutedly, but Nippon.com’s analysis and other platforms in Russian and Japanese clearly note the trend: Washington, focused on confronting China and the Taiwan issue, increasingly treats the economy as a tool of geopolitics. One Nippon.com piece stresses that the new Trump administration, even while avoiding references to a Camp David summit, seeks to maintain a multilayered architecture of cooperation — from the "Quad" format (US, Japan, Australia, India) to trilateral combinations like US–Japan–South Korea and others. However, Japanese writers note that US trade and industrial policy is becoming more "America‑first," and the risk that Japanese industries could be targeted is considered quite real. Against this backdrop the Japanese debate revolves around how Tokyo can simultaneously preserve a close alliance with the US and not become hostage to its domestic political and economic cycles.
For Ukraine, US economic nationalism primarily means volatility in budgetary aid and arms deliveries. Kyiv reacts painfully to any rhetoric in Washington about "cutting unnecessary overseas spending" and "focusing on domestic problems," viewing it as a direct threat to Ukraine’s military capabilities. Ukrainian analysts stress that for the White House the wars with Russia and US economic interests increasingly boil down to the question: what benefits the voter in Ohio and Pennsylvania. In this context trade conflicts with allies and Trump’s willingness to escalate with Seoul and Tokyo are seen as part of a broader picture in which Washington will not hesitate to sacrifice partners’ interests for domestic political agendas.
The third major storyline is the transformation of security in the Indo‑Pacific and the role of the US as a strategic umbrella. Nippon.com, in an article on "the security of Japan, the US and South Korea after Yoon Suk‑yeol," examines in detail what the Trump administration’s "shift of focus" to confrontation with China and Taiwan means for trilateral cooperation. The author recalls that Trump‑2’s arrival in January 2025 caused concerns in Tokyo and Seoul about the continuation of the trilateral format, but subsequent steps showed that Washington, even without pompous references to Camp David, intends to develop coordination in at least four configurations: US–Japan–Australia–India, US–Japan–South Korea, US–Japan–Australia and US–Japan–Philippines. Japanese experts note that for Tokyo and Seoul the key question is not so much whether the formal alliance with the US will remain, but whether Washington will truly be willing to take risks for them in the event of a crisis around Taiwan or a sharp escalation with North Korea. And here attention to US internal instability (from protests to legal proceedings) directly affects assessments of the reliability of American guarantees.
The South Korean debate about the American security umbrella became even sharper after the impeachment of Yoon Suk‑yeol and the subsequent reorientation of foreign policy. Korean and Japanese analysis increasingly warns: if American political presence on the peninsula sharply declines, "the foundations of South Korean security will be seriously undermined." Nippon.com authors, in a piece on the future of Japan–Korea relations without US mediation, emphasize that the "departure" of America has already led to a loss of a common security policy direction that was previously set by Washington’s strategy. For Tokyo this means the need to itself strike a balance between cooperation with Seoul and containing China without relying fully on American arbitration. For Seoul — the danger of finding itself alone not only with North Korea but also with growing Chinese influence if Washington shifts attention to other regions or becomes mired in domestic crises.
Against this backdrop Japanese and Korean writers pay particular attention to the figures of specific American politicians, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio to local military commanders, analyzing how their rhetoric and personnel policies signal long‑term US engagement in the region. Photographs of meetings of the foreign ministers of Japan, the US and South Korea on the sidelines of the NATO summit — a frame showing Japanese FM Iwai Takeshi, US Secretary of State Rubio and South Korean minister Cho Tae‑yul — are accompanied in the local press by the question: is this confirmation of strategic cohesion or a ritual behind which an increasingly transactional logic hides?
For Ukraine, the question of American military reliability takes on a very concrete form. The meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at the White House on February 28, 2025 — which ended in a public spat and the early departure of the Ukrainian president — remains to this day a starting point for assessments of Washington’s "new realism." Ukrainian writers actively discuss the controversial "minerals deal" around which negotiations were built, viewing it as an example of how American aid is increasingly accompanied by demands for material collateral and long‑term economic concessions. For Kyiv this painfully resonates with Asian narratives: Seoul, Tokyo and Ukraine all increasingly understand that this is no longer about unconditional guarantees but about bargaining in which the US plays the role of the "senior partner" dictating the rules of the game.
Finally, it is important to note another, less visible but telling layer — the participation of South Korea, Japan and Ukraine in global campaigns in which the US appears no longer as an actor but as a stage or symbol. An example is the actions of the Iranian diaspora, which since January 2026 have taken place in more than thirty countries, including Ukraine, South Korea and Japan. Here the US appears ambivalently: on the one hand, as one of the key external opponents of the Iranian regime and a potential defender of human rights; on the other — as a country where its own protests against the brutality of security forces and immigration restrictions make Asian and Ukrainian commentators speak of double standards. For Japanese and Korean authors the parallel between the dispersal of demonstrations in Iran and the actions of American security forces is not symmetrical — the US is still seen as a democracy with independent courts and media. But the mere possibility of such a parallel already changes the tone of the conversation: America ceases to be an unquestioned moral apex, becoming one of many countries struggling with their own "masked men with weapons."
The common denominator of all these disparate threads is a gradual departure from the previous model of perceiving the US as a stable, predictable and morally unassailable center of the liberal world. In Seoul and Tokyo Washington remains an indispensable security partner, but it is increasingly less often treated as the "adult in the room" who will always step in between conflicting allies and take responsibility for the common course. In Kyiv the US continues to be the main donor and arms supplier, but every new turn in America’s domestic crises heightens anxiety: might there come a moment when America finally "turns inward" and leaves its allies alone with their wars. Against this backdrop South Korean, Japanese and Ukrainian voices do not sound anti‑American but increasingly sober: they recognize the indispensable role of the US while speaking louder about the need for their own strategic calculations, in which Washington is an important but no longer the only and not always reliable pillar. It is precisely this new, more complex and less idealized optic that today shapes the image of America in Seoul, Tokyo and Kyiv — and it differs noticeably from the image the US has long sought to project about itself.
