How does the second Trump administration judge the security value of a “model ally”? President Donald Trump has long criticized U.S. allies as “free-riders” who do not pay their fair share, going so far as to personally pay for a newspaper advertisement in 1987 criticizing Japan and Saudi Arabia. Yet in 2025, President Trump praised the leaders of these countries while his senior officials called some countries “model allies,” including the Republic of Korea (ROK), Israel, Poland, Germany, and the Baltic states. This Asan Issue Brief analyzes the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) and 2026 U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) to identify how the Trump administration judges whether allied governments are shouldering “their fair share of the burden of our collective defense.” It looks at the ROK, Japan, and Australia, which are the United States’ key Indo-Pacific treaty allies that are addressed in the two documents. The NSS and NDS together offer an insight into the tentative consensus among the different ideological camps within the second Trump administration, each of which evaluates alliances differently.

The Issue Brief proceeds as follows. First, it compares the Biden administration’s definition of a “model ally” with the shifting expectations of the second Trump administration. Second, it analyzes the 2025 NSS and 2026 NDS to identify evaluation criteria for “model allies” which emphasize tangible contributions, including higher defense spending targets, increased arms sales and investments in the U.S. defense industrial base, and offering access along the First Island Chain (FIC) and leading efforts to deter or defend against other, lesser threats. The Issue Brief finds that the Lee Jae Myung administration’s announcements have been interpreted by the Trump administration as fulfilling all three criteria. Third, it discusses the implications of a capability-expectations gap as well as the possible risks of being a “model ally” as defined by the Trump administration. Finally, it offers several policy recommendations for the ROK and allies, including preparing for pressure to seek even higher defense spending targets than those currently under consideration, preparing for potential shifts in U.S. force posture as well as nuclear strategy in forthcoming strategic documents, and increasing participation in regional multilateral security partnerships that are still consistent with U.S. strategic objectives.