South Korea’s Yoon Set To Address Joint Session of US Congress

Jenny Leonard
·2 min read

(Bloomberg) -- South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is set to speak in front of a joint session of the US Congress in late April when he visits Washington, his office confirmed after Bloomberg reported the address would take place.

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The leader will travel to Washington for a state visit and state dinner on April 26 hosted by President Joe Biden.

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers met Yoon in Seoul on Wednesday. They informed him that a formal invitation from congressional leaders will be forthcoming. The delegation also met with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin and toured a Samsung facility on Tuesday. They also visited the Demilitarized Zone buffer that divides the two Koreas.

The speech before the Congress is set to take place on April 27, they said.

Yoon’s office confirmed he had accepted the invitation from the American lawmakers to deliver the speech.

The speech is expected to address a range of issues of mutual interest between the US and South Korea, including economic cooperation, regional security, and North Korea’s nuclear program. The April speech in Congress will be the first by a South Korean president in ten years.

Yoon’s visit is an effort to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the US-South Korea alliance, which both sides have repeatedly said is critical to advancing peace, stability, and prosperity for the two countries, the Indo-Pacific region, and around the world.

The Biden administration has been courting South Korea, in an effort to move it away from Beijing. Seoul for years has tried to strike a delicate balance between its biggest trading partner, China and its main military ally, the US.

Yoon came to office last May, pledging to take a tough line on China and has since stepped up security cooperation with Washington. But his administration has not offered its full-throated support for Biden’s initiative to curb exports of semiconductor technology to China.

South Korean companies won a one-year reprieve from sweeping US export controls unveiled in October that prevent semiconductor firms from bringing in equipment for their advanced facilities in China. Without a license extension, it is unclear how major South Korean chipmakers Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. would proceed — both depend on Beijing as a key market and a manufacturing site for their memory chips.

The White House has been trying to incentivize South Korean companies to invest in the US through subsidies, though the money comes with strings attached that prohibit firms from significantly expanding in China.

--With assistance from Jeong-Ho Lee.

(Adds confirmation from South Korean presidential office)

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