US President, Donald Trump has landed in South Korea to meet President Lee Jae Myung.
After arriving on a flight from Tokyo, the US President addressed a summit of CEOs ahead of a meeting with Lee in the town of Gyeongju, a historical city playing host to the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
South Korea awarded Trump its most prestigious medal for his efforts to stabilise peace on the Korean Peninsula before the meeting.
Lee’s office said that Trump is the first US President to receive the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, South Korea’s highest order, in recognition of his past diplomatic efforts and to emphasise his role as a “peacemaker” between the rival Koreas.
Seoul also presented Trump with a replica of a royal gold crown from the ancient Silla Kingdom, whose capital was Gyeongju.
At the top of the agenda for the talks with Lee will be the unresolved trade agreement between the US and South Korea. The two allies announced a deal in August under which Seoul would avoid the worst of the tariffs by agreeing to pump $350bn of new investments into the US.
However, Korean officials say a direct cash injection could destabilise their economy, and they would rather do loans and loan guarantees instead. Officials from both sides have said Trump and Lee are unlikely to finalise an agreement.
For now, South Korea is stuck with a 25% tariff on vehicles, putting manufacturers such as Hyundai and Kia at a disadvantage against Japanese and European competitors, which face a 15% levy.
Trump has also pressed allies including South Korea to pay more for defence, and the two are likely to discuss efforts to engage North Korea.
Trump has made repeated calls for a meeting with leader Kim Jong-un, including during this trip, but said today that he had been unable to work out the timings. The US President, however, promised to keep trying to “straighten out” the conflict on the peninsula.
North Korea has shunned any form of talks with Washington and Seoul since Kim’s high-stakes nuclear diplomacy with Trump fell apart in 2019, during the US President’s first term.
Kim has said that he still personally holds “fond memories” of Trump, but has also said that he would only be open to talks if Washington stops insisting his country give up its nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea Test-fires Cruise Missile Ahead Of Trump’s South Korea Visit
Meanwhile, North Korea announced today that it had test-fired a nuclear-capable cruise missile the previous day.
North Korea test-fired several sea-to-surface cruise missiles into its western waters, according to state media, hours before United States President Donald Trump began a visit to South Korea.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) disclosed that the missiles, carried out in the Yellow Sea on Tuesday, flew for more than two hours before accurately striking targets.
According to KCNA, top military official Pak Jong Chon oversaw the test and said “important successes” were being achieved in developing North Korea’s “nuclear forces” as a war deterrent.
Pak noted that the test was aimed at assessing “the reliability of different strategic offensive means and impress their abilities upon the enemies.” “It is our responsible mission and duty to ceaselessly toughen the nuclear combat posture,” he added.
South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said today that the military had detected the North Korean launch preparations and that the cruise missiles were fired in the country’s northwestern waters at about 3pm (06:00 GMT) on Tuesday.
The joint chiefs said that South Korea and the US were analysing the weapons and maintaining a combined defence readiness capable of a “dominant response” against any North Korean provocation.
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