The government is pushing for an early meeting between President Yoon Suk-yeol and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. It emphasized that thorough preparations for the “Trump second term” administration have been made from the beginning of the election process.
The planned meeting between President Yoon and President-elect Trump aims to take place before January 20 of the following year, prior to the U.S. presidential inauguration. It is reported that the government is actively considering a plan for President Yoon to stop in the U.S. to meet with President-elect Trump during the multilateral summit scheduled in South America in mid-December.
A Foreign Ministry official stated on the 7th, in response to questions about whether the meeting between President Yoon and President-elect Trump could occur before the presidential inauguration, “As President Yoon is keen on meeting at the earliest time, we must continue to coordinate with the U.S. side.”
On the morning of that day, President Yoon agreed with President-elect Trump during a phone call to set a date and location for the meeting as soon as possible, according to Kim Tae-hyo, the First Deputy Director of the National Security Office.
The government is prioritizing the visit to the U.S. either before or after attending the multilateral summit in South America and is considering various options. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Meeting will be held in Peru on December 15-16, followed by the G20 summit in Brazil on December 18-19.
However, since President-elect Trump is not yet in an official government position, the government is cautiously reviewing the format and specific agenda of the meeting. There is speculation that the precedent set by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had a surprise early meeting with President Trump following his first election victory in 2016, might be considered.
Former Prime Minister Abe spoke with President-elect Trump the day after the election results were finalized on November 10 and met him in New York a week later. Conscious that the President-elect was not yet an official, this meeting proceeded as a more informal “friendly event,” where they exchanged golf equipment gifts, marking Trump’s first diplomatic engagement.
Previously, Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yong evaluated that the early phone call between the Korean leader and President-elect Trump symbolically demonstrated the strength of the Korea-U.S. alliance. Publicly available information suggests that President Yoon was contacted around the 10th in the sequence with President-elect Trump.
A Foreign Ministry official explained that Cho Hyun-dong, the ambassador to the U.S., was dispatched to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, which President-elect Trump chose as his transition team’s base, primarily to facilitate the call and will continue to actively network with the transition team.
It is expected that it will take some time before a delegation or government representative is dispatched for policy consultations. During the U.S. election period, the government reportedly engaged in active networking with over 100 interactions with both candidates’ camps.