New US envoy Steel tours Seoul landmarks after taking up post

By Kim Dong-young Posted : August 2, 2026, 16:15 Updated : August 2, 2026, 17:57
Michelle Steel (left), U.S. ambassador to South Korea, poses for a photo with a shop owner while holding hotteok, Aug. 1, 2026. Courtesy of Michelle Steel's X account
 
SEOUL, August 02 (AJP) - Michelle Steel, the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, has visited a string of Seoul's most recognizable sites in the days since taking up her post, in an early effort to underscore her personal ties to the country as its first Korean American woman to hold the role.
 

Steel marked the start of her tenure by raising the American flag alongside the embassy's Marine Security Guards, calling it "a symbolic and meaningful start" to her time as envoy to the Republic of Korea.
 

Steel toured Namdaemun Market on Saturday, sharing photographs on X of herself and her husband, attorney Shawn Steel, posing outside the market and holding hotteok, a Korean griddle pancake, alongside a vendor.

"Returning to Namdaemun Market after so many years brought back so many memories," Steel wrote.

"It is wonderful to rediscover Seoul — a city that is both familiar and new to me."

A day earlier, she posted a photograph taken before the statue of King Sejong at Gwanghwamun, saying the monument reminded her of Korea's legacy of innovation and leadership.

Born in Seoul in 1955 to a family displaced from the North, Steel emigrated to the United States in 1975.
 
Michelle Steel, U.S. ambassador to South Korea raised the American flag with the Embassy’s Marine Security Guards, July 31, 2026. Courtesy of the U.S. Embassy Seoul
 
She went on to serve on California's Board of Equalization, as an Orange County supervisor and as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and is seen as close to President Donald Trump and the party's mainstream.

Her arrival on Thursday filled a post that had stood vacant for about a year and a half. Fluent in Korean, she is expected to help reinforce the alliance by bridging the sensibilities of both nations.

Steel, a devout Christian, also attended Sunday worship at Youngnak Presbyterian Church in central Seoul, a congregation founded by refugees from the North that her own displaced parents once attended, according to local media reports.
Kim Dong-young

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