August 28, 2025
SEOUL – President Lee Jae Myung concluded a visit to the United States marked by a high-stakes summit with President Donald Trump, returning home with some progress achieved and other negotiations still underway.
Lee left Seoul on Saturday, traveling to Japan before visiting Washington and Philadelphia on a trip closely watched as an early test of the new administration’s relations with the US and Japan, South Korea’s two most important diplomatic partners.
During the summit in Washington, Lee emphasized the security alliance between the two countries and suggested a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whom Trump expressed a desire to meet with this year. Lee’s pursuit of a “pragmatic alliance” focused on national interests — a principle he has stressed since his June inauguration — helped him find common ground with Trump on ways to “modernize” the bilateral alliance in a reciprocal manner.
At home, the summit between Lee and Trump received more positive than negative responses, as both sides appeared to focus on reaffirming their alliance while avoiding sensitive points of contention. A Realmeter poll of 507 adults conducted on Wednesday showed that 53.1 percent viewed the summit’s outcome favorably, while 41.5 percent disapproved.
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s senior spokesperson, Rep. Park Soo-hyun, hailed the summit as touching on agendas “directly related to the lives of the people,” while reaffirming the “future-oriented path of the alliance,” in a statement on Wednesday.
However, the main opposition People Power Party’s Rep. Choi Eun-seok said Lee was returning to Seoul “empty-handed,” given that the summit yielded no bilateral document.
“The presidential office described the meeting as if it was so successful that a bilateral document was unnecessary … but the truth will be revealed,” Choi said.
Before embarking on his flight back to South Korea, Lee visited the Hanwha Philly Shipyard on Tuesday local time to attend the christening of the State of Maine, an 8,487-ton training vessel built for the US Maritime Administration. It was the first such ceremony since South Korea-based shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean and defense equipment manufacturing affiliate Hanwha Systems jointly acquired the shipyard for $100 million in December.
According to the presidential office, the State of Maine is the third vessel built out of five ordered by the US Maritime Administration.
Lee hailed Tuesday’s ceremony as a moment to take the two countries’ alliance to the next level.
“Now, through the Philly Shipyard, the 72-year-old alliance between South Korea and the US will open the door to a future-oriented comprehensive strategic alliance that brings together the alliance in terms of security, economics and technology,” Lee said.
South Korea and the US became formal allies soon after the armistice of the Korean War in 1953, and vessels built at the over 200-year-old Philly Shipyard were sent to assist Korea during the war, Lee said, adding that the survivors of the war and their descendants rose from the ashes of the conflict and eventually built a shipbuilding powerhouse in South Korea.
Now is the time for South Korea’s shipbuilding industry to help revive US shipbuilding, which will create a win-win outcome for both, Lee said. On the occasion of Lee’s visit, Hanwha Group, the seventh-largest conglomerate in South Korea by assets, announced Tuesday a $5 billion commitment to expand the shipyard’s annual capacity by up to 20-fold.
“As the president of an ally (of the US), I am deeply pleased,” he said.
South Korea’s so-called “Make American Shipbuilding Great Again” project — which contributed to the success of the recent tariff negotiations — is “a grand vision to revive a lost dream.”
During Monday’s summit, Trump said he was considering placing US ship orders with South Korea. He described South Korean investment in US shipyards as a way for the US to “go back into the shipbuilding business again.”
Trump, in a Cabinet meeting, stressed that both sides would uphold the deal reached in late July, which reduced a tariff hike on many South Korean goods in return for South Korea investing $350 billion in US projects — including $150 billion for shipbuilding cooperation — and the purchase of $100 billion worth of liquefied natural gas.
At a business roundtable on Monday in Washington, Federation of Korean Industries Chair Ryu Jin announced on behalf of Korean companies an additional combined $150 billion direct investment in the US, separate from the July trade deal.
A report on Wednesday by South Korean accounting firm KPMG Samjong explained that Seoul managed to address US trade concerns through the additional direct investment commitment by South Korean business circles.
“Contrary to initial concerns, the framework of the bilateral trade deal remained unchanged,” noted the report.
Choi also highlighted that the determination of South Korean businesses, demonstrated through the additionally announced investments, prevented the summit from ending in disaster, commenting that the businesses have been treated badly by the liberal-controlled National Assembly’s recent passage of a pro-labor bill.
“While companies are increasing their investment commitments overseas, they are shackled by the risk of labor union strikes at home,” Choi said. “This contradiction will ultimately lead to a self-destructive outflow of investment and job losses.”
Before Lee visited the Philly Shipyard, he went to Arlington National Cemetery on the outskirts of Washington for a flower-laying ceremony to pay his respects to the fallen heroes of the Korean War.
In Philadelphia, Lee went to the Philip Jaisohn Memorial House to honor patriot Seo Jae-pil, a Korean American who fought for Korea’s independence from Japanese colonial rule. Lee was the first South Korean president to visit the site in 26 years.
