{"id":174607,"date":"2025-08-25T15:08:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T15:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/174607\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T15:08:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T15:08:15","slug":"trump-claims-purge-or-revolution-in-south-korea-ahead-of-meeting-with-new-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/174607\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump claims ‘Purge or Revolution’ in South Korea ahead of meeting with new leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> greeted Lee Jae Myung, the new president of South Korea<\/a>, by asserting that a \u201cPurge or Revolution\u201d was taking place there and threatening to not do business with Seoul as he prepared to host the new leader at the White House later Monday. <\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to, but South Korea had been in a state of political turmoil for the last several months after its former leader, the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, briefly imposed martial law last December which eventually led to his stunning ouster from office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can\u2019t have that and do business there,\u201d Trump posted on social media Monday morning. \u201cI am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yoon, who was elected to a five-year term in 2022, was considered more ideologically aligned with Trump and had even taken up golfing again<\/a> after the U.S. president was reelected last November to try to forge a bond with him. <\/p>\n

The liberal Lee, an outspoken critic of Seoul\u2019s conservative establishment who had narrowly lost to Yoon in that 2022 election, led the South Korean parliament\u2019s efforts to overturn Yoon\u2019s martial law decree while impeaching him. The nation\u2019s Constitutional Court formally dismissed Yoon in April. <\/p>\n

Before Trump\u2019s Truth Social post Monday morning, the first in-person meeting between Trump and Lee had been expected to help flesh out details of a July trade deal between the two countries that has Seoul investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. The agreement set tariffs on South Korean goods at 15% after Trump threatened rates as high as 25%.<\/p>\n

Trump declared at the time that South Korea would be \u201ccompletely OPEN TO TRADE\u201d with the U.S. and accept goods such as cars and agricultural products. Automobiles are South Korea\u2019s top export to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Seoul has one of the largest trade surpluses among Washington\u2019s NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, and countries where the U.S. holds a trade deficit has drawn particular ire from Trump, who wants to eliminate such trade imbalances.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s office said in announcing the visit that the two leaders plan to discuss cooperating on key manufacturing sectors such as semiconductors, batteries and shipbuilding. The latter has been a particular area of focus for the U.S. president.<\/p>\n

On defense, one potential topic is the continued presence of U.S. troops in South Korea and concerns in Seoul that the U.S. will seek higher payments in return. <\/p>\n

Ahead of his visit to Washington, Lee traveled to Tokyo<\/a> for his first bilateral visit as president in a hugely symbolic trip for the two nations that hold longstanding historical wounds. The summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was interpreted by analysts<\/a> as a way to show unity and potential leverage as Japan and South Korea face new challenges from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Lee was the first South Korean president to choose Japan for the inaugural bilateral visit since the two nations normalized ties in 1965.<\/p>\n

Elected in June, Lee was a former child laborer with an arm deformity who rose his way through South Korea\u2019s political ranks to lead the liberal Democratic Party and win the presidency after multiple attempts. <\/p>\n

Lee faced an assassination attempt in January 2024, when he was stabbed in the neck by a man saying he wanted Lee\u2019s autograph and later told investigators that he intended to kill the politician.<\/p>\n

Lee arrived in the U.S. on Sunday and will leave Tuesday. He headlined a dinner Sunday evening with roughly 200 local Korean-Americans in downtown Washington on Sunday night. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump greeted Lee Jae Myung, the new president of South Korea, by asserting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":174608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[13214,84,69,57,2055,13790,170,30359,50,80,26057,3645,15243,30357,67,132,68,93,107,77632],"class_list":{"0":"post-174607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-asia-pacific","10":"tag-district-of-columbia","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-government-and-politics","14":"tag-international-trade","15":"tag-japan","16":"tag-lee-jae-myung","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-seoul","20":"tag-shigeru-ishiba","21":"tag-south-korea","22":"tag-south-korea-government","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-washington-news","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-yoon-suk-yeol"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115090037618291203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}