The chiefs of South Korea’s Hanwha Group and the US-based Heritage Foundation called for efforts to strengthen the US-Korea alliance during a meeting in Seoul on Friday, the conglomerate said Sunday.

Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn and Heritage Foundation founder and former president Edwin J. Feulner Jr. exchanged ideas on various topics, including cooperation on strengthening US-South Korea relations, forging peace on the Korean Peninsula and the US-China trade war. The two have met regularly since the early 1980s.

Kim asked Feulner, currently the chairman of the foundation’s Asian Studies Center, to continue to offer his expertise to facilitate successful denuclearization talks with North Korea, and the veteran US expert expressed his willingness to do so.

The Hanwha chief also expressed concerns over difficulties faced by Korean businesses in the US, despite the successful renegotiation of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement earlier this year. But he also said that the new deal had alleviated uncertainties concerning regulations.

Feulner, an expert on Korean and East Asian politics, noted that the Donald Trump administration’s trade policies were intended to primarily target China, and that the US had also renegotiated its FTA with Canada and Mexico. He said the US would continue to pressure China in the areas of trade and investment.

The Heritage Foundation chief also predicted that the Republican Party might win both the US Senate and Congress in the upcoming midterm elections, despite popular expectations of a victory for the Democrats.

Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D., is the founder and chairman of the Asian Studies Center and a Chung Ju-yung fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a leading research and public policy institute in Washington.

Feulner and the Hanwha chairman have maintained a working relationship for the past 30 years, holding regular meetings to discuss outstanding political and economic issues between the two countries.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)