South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrested on second attempt

In anticipation of the second arrest attempt, thousands of Yoon’s supporters — including some 30 lawmakers from his ruling People Power Party, according to Yonhap — gathered outside the president’s residence, with some forming human chains to hamper access. Such scenes reflect the country’s “deepening polarisation,” the BBC noted, between rival political camps, the executive and judicial branches of power, and law enforcement officers armed with an arrest warrant and presidential security staff. Those political divisions will likely outlast Yoon, The Economist warned: His party has rebounded in the polls, while the opposition Democratic Party has seen its ratings decline.

Acting President Choi Sang-Mok — who assumed the role after his predecessor Han Duck-soo was himself impeached — vowed to stabilize financial markets, but the government’s “false confidence” ignores how economic conditions surrounding Yoon’s impeachment are far less favorable than they have been, two Center for Strategic and International Studies experts argued. Growth in China, South Korea’s main trading partner, is slowing, and fresh tariffs from the incoming Trump administration would hit export-dependent South Korea twice as hard as the previous US-China trade war did, Bloomberg reported. South Korean companies told the Financial Times that the recent turmoil has undermined efforts to counter US protectionism. “We are like a hostage situation,” one conglomerate representative said.