South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said his staff was worried that his meeting with President Donald Trump might result in a “Zelensky moment,” adding that he studied Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal, before the pair met Monday in Washington, DC.
Lee’s arrival to the White House came just hours after Trump described the political turmoil in South Korea as a “purge or revolution,” writing on Truth Social that the United States “can’t have that and do business there.”
The pre-meeting post was in response to tensions building in South Korea following the ouster of conservative former President Yoon Suk-yeol, who attempted to impose martial law in December 2022. After Yoon was impeached and removed from office in April, the left-wing Democratic Party leader, Lee, won the June special election to take his place.
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Trump told reporters on Monday that he had heard “there were raids on churches over the last few days. Very vicious raids on churches by the new government in South Korea,” and added that “they even went into our military base and got information.”
“Police probably shouldn’t have done that, but I heard bad things. I don’t know if it’s true or not,” he said, just before Lee was due at the White House. “I’ll be finding out.”
The raids by Korean law enforcement were part of investigations into pro-Yoon activists, USA Today reported.
“Before I met with President Trump today, he posted on Truth Social a very threatening post, which I felt,” Lee said later on Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Trump told Lee in the Oval Office “I am sure it’s a misunderstanding, but there’s a rumor going around about raiding churches.”
“I’m sure that it’s going to be worked out fine,” Trump added.
Lee clarified during the meeting that the raids were part of a “fact-finding investigation” into the “coup” by Yoon and confirmed that a raid took place on the joint Osan Air Base in July that was confined to the “control system of the Korean military” and not “a search and seizure of American bases.”
Referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s troubled visit to the White House in February, Lee later stated that the meeting went well despite concerns that it would devolve into a similar blow up.
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“And so, my staff was worried that we might face a Zelensky moment. But I already knew that I would not face that kind of situation,” the South Korean leader said, noting that he prepared by reading Trump’s 1987 business memoir.
The Hill reported of the meeting:
The U.S. and South Korea agreed to a 15 percent tariff rate for exports from Seoul with $100 billion in energy investments. Trump told reporters the nation’s leaders found some qualms with the deal, but he stuck to his guns on the terms of agreement.
Continuing to speak with reporters at CSIS, Lee stated, “President Trump said, as a technique in negotiating, that he presents conditions that are hard to accept for the opponent.”
“But at the final stage, he does not come to an unreasonable conclusion,” the South Korean president said. “And this was the pattern that I observed in his previous negotiations with other countries. And because of the importance of the Korea-U.S. alliance, I was confident that he would not inflict a wound to our alliance.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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