South Korea elects liberal president after chaotic six months
SEOUL, South Korea – South Koreans elected Lee Jae-myung as president Tuesday, choosing a liberal whose vision to reshape his nation’s foreign policy could put him at odds with the Trump administration, particularly when it comes to China.
Lee became the formal winner after his main rival, the conservative Kim Moon-soo, conceded early Wednesday.
“I will not forget for one moment the mission you expect from me and have entrusted me, and will definitely, absolutely carry it out without ever straying from it,” Lee said in a celebratory speech near the National Assembly.
With 99.8 % of the votes counted early Wednesday morning, Lee had 49.4% of the vote and Kim had 41.2.
Lee, 61, had been the clear front-runner in the race, which analysts said was largely a referendum on the previous government, led by Yoon Suk Yeol.
Yoon was impeached for declaring martial law in December – setting off six months of turmoil during a time of political upheaval in the United States. Yoon was formally removed from office in April, prompting an election to be called two years early.
Lee takes office on Wednesday. He will arrive with a sweeping mandate and with his party in control of the National Assembly, giving him broad legislative power.
But he faces major challenges, including polarization, an economic slowdown and urgent foreign policy priorities that had largely been left in limbo after Yoon’s impeachment.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast Tuesday that South Korea’s growth rate would slow to 1% this year.
While Seoul faced its worst political and constitutional crisis in decades, the Trump administration was plowing ahead with policies that affect South Korea’s economy and security interests.
Lee will need to appeal to President Donald Trump on issues including the steep tariffs against South Korea’s key industries, including steel and autos, and his desire to scale back the number of U.S. troops based in South Korea.
“This is really a story of going from the frying pan into the fire. Yes, we will close the book on the martial law chapter, but what comes next is daunting,” said Victor Cha, Korea chair at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“There has been a quiet crisis brewing in the alliance, which has been masked by the political crisis in Korea and the Trump focus on everything but Korea,” Cha added.
Lee has promised to establish an emergency task force on the economic and trade crisis as his first order as president.
Trump is set to double the tariff on steel and aluminum imports to 50 % starting Wednesday, the same day Lee will be inaugurated.
That comes on top of 25 % levies on cars and a 10 % blanket duty on all other products while trade talks take place.
South Korea’s overall exports to its two largest markets, the United States and China, each fell by about 8% last month compared with a year earlier because of the trade war and supply chain realignments.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken an increasingly hawkish approach toward China and has been pushing allies to do the same, a move that could put Lee in a bind as he seeks balance between the two superpowers.
Lee repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he supports the U.S.-South Korea security alliance, calling it the foundation of South Korea’s diplomacy, and cooperation with Tokyo.
Lee has not been specific about his strategy to deal with Trump. But he said he is willing to make compromises and wants to get started on negotiations right away.
“I would even crawl under [Trump’s] legs if necessary,” to strike the best deal for South Koreans, Lee said in a radio interview Monday. But he warned he’s no pushover: “I’m not an easy person to deal with, either.”
Seoul does not, however, need to rush tariff talks, he said, adding that he first wants to know what leverage Seoul has. “Before we talk about our cards, we need to see what President Trump’s real cards are,” he said in a YouTube interview last month.
Compared to predecessors from his Democratic Party, Lee is considered far less ideological on foreign policy priorities. For example, previous presidents from his party advocated the reunification of the Koreas and had singularly pursued pro-North policies at the expense of Seoul’s relations with Washington.
But Lee is not of that ilk. He calls himself a foreign policy “pragmatist” who is driven by South Korea’s national interest, and experts say that means he is less predictable – and may be more willing to engage with Washington.
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Balancing act
Lee also wants to improve relations with China, Seoul’s largest trading partner by far, and engage with Beijing’s leaders in diplomatic talks. He has said Seoul’s relations with Beijing suffered under Yoon, who walked more in lockstep with Washington.
“The Yoon Suk Yeol government failed to properly resolve diplomatic issues,” Lee wrote in an autobiography this spring. At a televised debate last month, he also described Seoul’s current approach to Beijing as “neglected” and “unnecessarily antagonizing.”
Lee has deflected on whether Seoul would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese invasion, telling Time last month: “I will think about that answer when aliens are about to invade the earth.”
Yet South Koreans have grown more wary of China, polls have shown, and striking a balance at a time of intensifying U.S.-China competition has become increasingly difficult, said Sungmin Cho, a Korea-China expert at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul.
“South Korea’s position is becoming more difficult, to stand on this tightrope,” Cho said. “So he will be more serious about hedging.”
The regional environment has changed markedly even since Lee last ran for president in 2022, according to Miyeon Oh, Korea chair at the Rand think tank.
North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities continue to improve, and it has forged a military alliance with Russia, even sending thousands of troops to fight in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
Plus, China and Russia have been growing closer – a development that Lee has mentioned on the campaign trail, suggesting that Seoul should be paying closer attention to its near neighbors.
Together, this has made the broader region surrounding the Korean Peninsula far more challenging, Oh said.
“North Korea has become a global threat, not a regional threat,” she said.
Lee has said he supports restarting dialogue with North Korea. In a February interview with The Washington Post, he said he would like to see a significant breakthrough in talks to limit Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile ambitions.
Whether Pyongyang is interested in talking with Seoul again anytime soon, however, is in question. North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has become more emboldened by his friendship with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and he has abandoned his country’s long-standing goal to unify with South Korea.
When it comes to North Korea, South Korea is a bit stuck, said Mason Richey, international politics professor at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.
“I mean, how do you talk to North Korea when North Korea doesn’t want to talk to you? What policy do you support?” Richey said.
Promise to restore stability
Lee has had plenty of time to think about these questions: This is his second tilt at South Korea’s presidency.
A former mayor of Seongnam and governor of Gyeonggi province, both located just outside Seoul, Lee rose up the ranks of the Democratic Party promoting left-wing ideas such as a universal basic income.
He was selected as the party’s candidate in the 2022 presidential election but lost to Yoon by a margin of less than one percentage point.
As leader of the opposition party, he became a thorn in Yoon’s side, launching an unprecedented number of impeachments against the president’s top officials.
But during this campaign season, Lee has been pitching more centrist policies in an effort to appeal to moderate swing voters, calling his campaign “centrist-conservative,” to differentiate from what he called far-right sentiments in the conservative People Power Party.
Lee grew up in poverty, working in sweatshops as a teen to help support his family instead of attending middle school. An accident at a glove factory left one arm permanently deformed.
He jokes that compared with the wealthy who are born with silver spoons in their mouths, he grew up so poor that there wasn’t even a spoon in sight.
Last year, Lee survived an assassination attempt after a man stabbed him in the neck during an event. During the campaign, he wore a protective vest and spoke behind bulletproof glass, which is highly unusual in South Korea’s hands-on retail politics.
He has promised to restore stability, rejecting Yoon’s martial law as an aberration in South Korea’s nearly four-decade democratic history. But it’s a tall task, given the nation’s deep polarization, experts say.
“The election will help with a collective sense of turning the page … [but] that does not mean the next president can automatically solve deep political divides,” said Darcie Draudt-Véjares, South Korean politics expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.