Trump meets with South Korean leader after public blast

President Donald Trump hosted South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the White House on Monday, just hours after suggesting in a social media post that the United States might stop doing business with the country.

It was the latest Oval Office meeting this year that threatened to leave a world leader on his heels in an encounter with a president with a penchant for both drama and settling scores.

Ahead of Lee’s arrival, Trump expressed apparent displeasure with the process by which Lee rose to power in South Korea earlier this year - winning an election in June after the last president, conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, was impeached and removed after briefly declaring martial law.

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”

Trump later explained to reporters that he “heard that there were raids on churches over the last few days, very vicious raids on churches by the new government in South Korea.”

It was not immediately clear what he was referring to. Last month, prosecutors in South Korea conducted raids in connection with a corruption investigation into the Unification Church.

“I heard bad things,” Trump said. “I don’t know if it’s true or not.”

But meeting with Lee in the Oval Office, speaking to each other through interpreters, Trump downplayed the raids, saying he was “sure it’s a misunderstanding,” congratulating Lee on his election and noting the number of South Korean reporters present to observe the exchange.

“I feel very warmly toward South Korea,” Trump said.

Trump also said he hoped to meet again with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un “in the appropriate future” and that he would like to do so as soon as this year.

Lee, meanwhile, was quick to compliment Trump - on the redecorating of the Oval Office, on his peacemaking efforts around the world, and on the recent high mark in the Dow Jones index. Lee drew smiles from Trump as he joked that the president should build a Trump Tower in North Korea and play a round of golf with Kim.

The South Korean president arrived for the meeting hoping to focus on trade after the two countries agreed on the outline of a deal last month that would see South Korea invest potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in business with the United States. Trump, as the meeting started, noted the potential for the two countries to partner on shipbuilding.

Trump’s social media post Monday morning wasn’t the first time he has posted ominously ahead of a world leader’s visit - and those posts aren’t always a sign that a meeting will devolve. In May, minutes before Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was due to meet with Trump, the president posted harshly about Canada’s imbalance of trade and defense spending, declaring “we don’t need ANYTHING they have.” But the meeting was widely seen as a positive one.

Despite their differences, Trump and the new, liberal president of South Korea have other experiences in common, and the summit Monday served as a chance for the two leaders to establish a rapport as they met for the first time. Both survived assassination attempts during events last year - a man stabbed Lee in the neck - and both saw boosts to their political careers after facing criminal indictments, trials and convictions in recent years.

During their first phone call, the two men spoke about their shared experience agreed to play a round of golf in the future.

Lee and Trump largely align in their desire to jump-start diplomacy with North Korea’s Kim. So far, Kim has not shown interest in engaging with either Seoul or Washington.

For Lee, a former opposition leader and governor who is new to the global stage, the meeting was his most high-profile appearance after fewer than three months in office.

Since taking office, Lee faced an urgent deadline on tariff negotiations with the United States. Last month, the two nations announced the framework of an agreement, which included a 15 percent tariff rate, the same as the European Union and Japan, down from the 25 percent that Trump initially threatened.

Lee calls himself a foreign policy “pragmatist” driven by national interest, expressing an interest in doing what is needed to build a relationship with Trump, while also seeking closer ties to China than Yoon.

“I will crawl between his legs if necessary, if that’s what I have to do for my people,” Lee said about Trump in June. “But I am not a pushover either.”

Lee says his predecessor was too confrontational with China, and he wants to rectify that through diplomatic talks. U.S. analysts say that kind of “strategic flexibility” has potential to create a rift between Seoul and Washington, as Trump pressures allies to join the U.S. in countering China’s rise.

So far, however, Lee has approached Seoul’s relationship with Beijing cautiously and without alienating Washington. He is instead leaning into South Korea’s security alliance with Washington and emphasizing that South Korea wants to cooperate with the United States. The approach also reflects shifting public opinion in South Korea; the public has become more critical of China in recent years because of coercive behavior from Beijing and cultural disputes, public surveys show.

There are a number of thorny unresolved issues between the two allies - including the potential removal of U.S. troops from South Korea, Seoul’s share of defense spending to host U.S. troops in the country, and the tariff negotiations. The U.S. also seeks to use U.S. troops deployed to South Korea for China-related contingencies and wants Seoul to take greater responsibility in deterring North Korea.

Trump declined to say whether he would reduce the number of U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea. “We’ve been friends, and we’re friends,” he said, when asked by a reporter about a potential reduction, saying, incorrectly, that the U.S. had over 40,000 troops in South Korea. The actual number is about 28,500.

Trump said he would like to own, rather than lease, the South Korean land on which the United States has a “massive military base.” It was unclear which of the several U.S. bases in the county he was referring to.

Lee faced a tightrope ahead of the meeting, especially in balancing relations between the United States and China. South Korean officials said they had hoped to avoid a major hiccup, or a “Zelensky moment,” in the Oval Office.