The two exchanged greetings and views on ways to advance the alliance, according to the office. Wi heads the National Security Office, the body inside the presidential compound that coordinates foreign policy, defense and intelligence for President Lee Jae Myung.
The meeting was arranged as an introductory call rather than a negotiating session. It came the same day Steel submitted a copy of her credentials to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and paid a courtesy call on Foreign Minister Cho Hyun.
An incoming envoy cannot begin official work in South Korea until that copy reaches the ministry's chief of protocol. The original goes to the president in a separate ceremony that completes the accreditation, and no date has been set for Steel's.
Wi is a career diplomat, and he is understood to have had dealings with Steel before her posting, when she served on a White House advisory commission for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and later in Congress. Neither side has given details of that earlier contact.
Steel landed at Incheon International Airport on July 30, ending a vacancy of about 18 months at the top of the American mission. She is the first ambassador to Seoul named by President Donald Trump in his second term and the second Korean American to hold the post, after Sung Kim and was by the Senate on June 17.
Born in Seoul in 1955 under the Korean name Park Eun-joo, Steel is the daughter of parents who fled North Korea during the Korean War. She grew up in Japan and moved to the United States in 1975.
English, she told her Senate confirmation hearing in May, is her third language. She holds a degree from Pepperdine University and an MBA from the University of Southern California.
She entered politics after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which she has said exposed how little weight the Korean American community carried in mainstream American politics.
AJP Takeaways
- South Korean national security adviser Wi Sung-lac met United States Ambassador Michelle Steel on Aug. 4, 2026, in their first meeting since Steel arrived in Seoul.
- Michelle Steel arrived in South Korea on July 30, 2026, ending a vacancy of about 18 months at the top of the United States mission in Seoul.
- Michelle Steel is the second Korean American to serve as United States ambassador to South Korea, after Sung Kim, and the first woman of Korean descent in the post.
- The United States Senate confirmed Michelle Steel as ambassador to South Korea on June 17, 2026.
- Michelle Steel served in the United States House of Representatives from 2021 to 2025 for California's 48th and 45th districts, losing her 2024 re-election bid to Democrat Derek Tran by about 600 votes.
- Michelle Steel told her Senate confirmation hearing in May 2026 that she would press South Korea on market access for American companies, South Korea's $350 billion investment commitment in the United States, and non-tariff barriers on American farm goods.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.