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President Yoon Suk-yeol gives an address to the nation from the presidential office in Seoul on Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Tae-hyeong/Hankyoreh)

The South Korean government is focusing its diplomatic resources on opening a line of communication with the incoming second Donald Trump administration in the US. President Yoon Suk-yeol announced on Monday that he had already spoken with Trump over the phone, adding that he and Trump agreed to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. 

During an address to the public and press conference held at the presidential office on Thursday, Yoon said that Trump brought up the topic of North Korea first, “perhaps because he takes an interest in North Korea.”

“When I told him that they [North Korea] have sent 7,000 waste balloons across the border, jammed our GPS systems, and recklessly launched ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] and IRBMs [intermediate-range ballistic missiles], he [Trump] said it was ‘unbelievable.’ We agreed to meet soon to share lots of information and discuss countermeasures,” Yoon added. 

Principal deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo held a press briefing at the presidential office on the same day, where he announced that Yoon and Trump spoke on the phone at 7:59 am for around 12 minutes. 

“They exchanged their analyses on North Korea’s current military movements, including their deployment of troops to [the war in] Ukraine, and agreed that the pressing North Korean [troop] situation is worrisome,” Kim said.

“There’s a great need to meet in person and discuss these issues in detail, so President Yoon and President-elect Trump have agreed to set a date and location for a meeting very soon,” Kim added. 

Yoon was reportedly the 11th head of state that Trump spoke to after being elected. 

The Yoon administration dispatched Cho Hyun-dong, South Korea’s ambassador to the US, to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where Trump’s transition team was formed directly after the election, to set up Yoon’s phone conversation with Trump. 

Meeting with reporters on Thursday, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said: “Ambassador Cho was sent to Mar-a-Lago to lay the groundwork for President Yoon’s conversation with President-elect Trump.” 

“He [Cho] will continue to communicate with Trump’s presidential transition team.” 

The Yoon administration has worked itself to maintain good relations with two Trump camp insiders — former US Senator Bill Hagerty, and Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s national security adviser — in order to establish a communication channel with the next US administration. 

Yoon went through such painstaking efforts to set up an early meeting with Trump because of the precedent set by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Abe traveled to New York in November 2016 immediately after Trump was elected for his first term, becoming the first foreign leader to meet a US president-elect. 

The presidential office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are looking into measures for exchanging special envoys with the US after setting up Yoon’s first meeting with Trump. Many people view Chang Ho-jin, presidential special adviser on foreign affairs and security, as a likely pick to serve as Yoon’s special envoy. Lawmakers belonging to the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, from both the ruling and opposition parties, and former Foreign Minister Park Jin are also expected to visit Washington, DC, in mid-November to meet with Trump’s team. 

By Park Min-hee, senior staff writer; Shin Hyeong-cheol, staff reporter

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