N. Korea at top of agenda as S. Korea’s new president comes to Washington

SEOUL, South Korea — When South Korea’s new president comes to the United States this week for his first meeting with President Donald Trump, there will be no cozy dinners at Mar-a-Lago or rounds of golf in the Florida sunshine.

Instead, Moon Jae-in will be going to the White House for what is shaping up to be a challenging summit, with the leaders taking sharply different approaches to dealing with North Korea and a continuing disagreement over an American antimissile system deployed to South Korea.

“The summit should really be about drawing the big picture, but instead they will be focusing on areas of potential friction,” said James Kim, a specialist in U.S.South Korea relations at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.“A lot will hinge on how the two leaders get along and the chemistry between them.”

Moon, a liberal who was elected president in a landslide in May following the impeachment of conservative Park Geun-hye amid a bribery scandal, has been doing his best to appear conciliatory in the lead-up to the summit.

“President Trump and I have a common goal - that is the complete dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” he told The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth in an interview last week.“I hope we will be able to show the world that the collaboration between our two countries is strong and will continue to grow stronger.”