Hours before South Korean president Lee Jae Mung was due to meet US president Donald Trump, a Truth Social post dropped.
Beginning with “WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA?” the post then referred to a “Purge or Revolution” – which many read as a reference to the prosecution of former president Yoon Suk Yeol who unsuccessfully attempted to impose martial law last December.
Speaking in the Oval Office before the meeting, Trump also said Seoul had conducted “raids on churches” and done “very bad things”.
But Lee, a seasoned politician, successfully turned on the charm and averted what officials were fearing – a repeat of what happened to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky or South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.
Lee marveled at the new Oval Office decor and praised the personal rapport that the US president has with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Lee even joked about building a Trump Tower in North Korea, saying he hoped to play golf there one day.
Supporters of Lee’s Democratic Party believe South Korea must achieve unification with the North through peace and dialogue.
“I look forward to meeting with Kim Jong Un in the appropriate future,” Trump said.
As the topic turned to trade, Trump said the US and South Korea “need each other”.
“We love what they do, we love their product, we love their ships, we love a lot of the things they make,” he said.
As the public meeting neared an end, it looked like Lee’s flattery had helped him avoid a Zelensky moment – the Ukrainian president’s White House visit in February devolved into an angry spat.
Later, when asked by a reporter about his earlier comments on South Korean authorities raiding churches, Trump said that he had heard about it through “intel” but that “didn’t sound like South Korea”.
The “rumour” was likely a “misunderstanding”, Trump said. He was sure that they would “work it out”.
