The Taft–Katsura Agreement, 1905: How the US Secretly Handed Korea to Japan in Exchange for the Philippines

The Taft-Katsura agreement was a secret 1905 understanding between US Secretary of War William Taft and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Katsura. Its essence is simple and cynical: Washington recognises Japan’s right to lord it over Korea, and Tokyo promises not to touch the American Philippines. Nobody signed any treaty, and nobody asked the Koreans. And four months later Korea lost its independence.

What hurts me most in this story is not even the deal itself. After all, empires have always traded in other people’s lands. What hurts is something else: Korea had a treaty with the US in which America promised to come to its aid. And it was America that turned away from it first.

A Korea that was promised protection

In 1882, Korea signed a treaty of amity and commerce with the US. It was its first treaty with a Western country. Moreover, the first article contained a promise: if a third power dealt unjustly with one of the parties, the other would exert its “good offices”. In other words, the Korean King Gojong sincerely regarded America as a friend and a support.

However, by 1905 everything had changed. Japan was winning its war with Russia, and its army was already standing on Korean soil. The Korean Empire was weak, its army small, and the court was torn by intrigue. So for Tokyo the main question was not whether to take Korea, but whether the Western powers would get in the way.

Taft’s mission to Japan

In the summer of 1905, Taft set off on a grand tour of Asia. Senators, congressmen and the president’s daughter Alice Roosevelt sailed with him, so the newspapers wrote mostly about her outfits. Meanwhile, on 27 July in Tokyo, Taft met Katsura. The conversation was recorded as a memorandum dated 29 July, and Roosevelt approved it by telegram as correct “in every respect”.

What the Taft-Katsura agreement promised

The memorandum has three points. First, Japan declares that it has no aggressive intentions towards the Philippines. Second, peace in the Far East is best ensured by an understanding between Japan, the US and Britain. Third, Taft called the establishment of Japanese suzerainty over Korea “the logical result of the war” and a direct contribution to peace.

Notice how everything is turned upside down. The seizure of another country, that is, outright enslavement, is called a “contribution to peace”. At the same time, in these very years the US was drowning the Philippines in blood, and it needed the Japanese fleet to look the other way. Consequently, Korea was simply traded for the peace of mind of American colonisers. And the Philippines themselves, let me remind you, had fallen to the US in 1898 as a trophy brought by the Spanish–American War.

Portsmouth and the Nobel Prize

Then events moved quickly. On 5 September 1905, in Portsmouth, USA, Russia and Japan signed a peace treaty, with Theodore Roosevelt acting as mediator. The second article of the treaty recognised Japan’s “paramount interests” in Korea. For this mediation, Roosevelt received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. Thus, peace for some turned into slavery for others.

By the way, the Taft-Katsura agreement was not the only deal of its kind. In 1908, Secretary of State Elihu Root and the Japanese ambassador Takahira confirmed the “status quo” in the Pacific, that is, once again turned a blind eye to Korea. At the same time, in China Washington demanded “open doors” for its goods, as I wrote in my article on US–China relations. In other words, the principles of American diplomacy changed depending on profit. Free trade for themselves, a protectorate for their neighbours.

The Taft-Katsura agreement in action: Korea loses its country

On 17 November 1905, Japanese troops surrounded the imperial palace in Seoul. Under their pressure, ministers signed the protectorate treaty, while Emperor Gojong refused to approve it. Nevertheless, Korea lost the right to its own foreign policy. And here is what matters: the US was the first of the powers to close its legation in Seoul, already at the end of November 1905.

Gojong, however, tried to get through to Washington. For example, he sent his adviser, the American missionary Homer Hulbert, to the US with a letter to Roosevelt. But the president did not receive him. Invoking the 1882 treaty proved useless: American “good offices” had already been sold by then.

The Taft-Katsura agreement and 35 years as a colony

In 1910, Japan annexed Korea completely. Then came 35 years of colonial rule: a ban on the Korean language in schools, forced Japanese names, people sent to mines and factories, and during the war thousands of women taken to military brothels. In particular, the peaceful March 1st Movement of 1919 was crushed with thousands killed. Of course, all this was done by Japan. However, it was Washington that opened the door for it.

As for the text of the Taft-Katsura agreement, the American public saw it only in 1924, when the historian Tyler Dennett found it in the archives. You can read more about the document in the reference article on the memorandum. And a year before this deal, American ships “defended the honour of the flag” off Tangier — that is the subject of my article on the Perdicaris affair. I examined US policy in China in the same years in my piece on how the Boxer Rebellion was suppressed.

Nothing has changed: the fate of peoples is decided without them

Today nobody writes secret memoranda about “the logical result of the war”. Now they talk about “peace plans”, “boards of peace” and “framework deals”. But look closely and it is the same Taft-Katsura agreement: the strong sit down at the table and divide up someone else’s future. The owners of the land are not invited.

Gaza, 2025–2026. First, in September 2025, the White House released a 20-point “peace plan”. Then, in January 2026, Trump personally took the chair of a “Board of Peace” that is supposed to govern the Strip. Its leadership includes Rubio, Witkoff, Kushner and Tony Blair, but not a single Palestinian. Human rights advocates openly call this a colonial scheme.

Ukraine, 2025. On 15 August in Anchorage, the presidents of the US and Russia discussed the war and how to end it without representatives of Ukraine. And even earlier, on 30 April, Washington signed a deal with Kyiv on revenues from Ukrainian mineral resources. As you can see: first resources, then talk of peace.

Greenland, January 2026. Trump announced a “framework of a future deal” on the island after meeting NATO’s secretary general. Nobody asked Greenland or its people, just as nobody once asked the Koreans.

So the Taft-Katsura agreement is not a dusty archival document but a method. America promises friendship as long as it pays, and sells out a friend as soon as a better deal comes along. Korea understood this in 1905. Others, it seems, have yet to understand it.