President Donald Trump hosts South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the White House in Washington, D.C., Aug. 25, 2025. (Daniel Torok/White House)
The president of South Korea on his first trip to the White House showered President Donald Trump with gifts and compliments Monday and pledged to reinforce their countries’ 75-year alliance with an increase in defense spending.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung Lee gifted Trump a model of a historic South Korean warship, a custom golf club and two cowboy hats emblazoned with Trump’s campaign logo.
“Thanks to your role, wars around the world … have reached truce and found peace,” Lee told Trump during a White House press conference. “Among the leaders in the world, I believe you are the only person who has paid attention to world peace and achieved progress.”
Lee said inter-Korean relations were “stable” during Trump’s first term, and that North Korea furthered its weapons program only after he left office in 2021.
Pyongyang “would not have done that if I were president,” Trump said.
“I completely agree with you,” Lee replied.
The South Korean president seemed to have “prepared thoroughly and did a lot of research on Trump” before the meeting, said Lee Byong-Chul, a Far Eastern Studies researcher at Kyungnam University.
“[Lee’s] references to golf and North Korea showed he had done a lot of research on Trump, and it succeeded in some way,” he said by phone Tuesday.
Lee, who led South Korea’s Democratic Party until his June inauguration, may have prepared an appeal to Trump’s political ambitions, said Hahm Sung Deuk, dean of Kyonggi University’s Graduate School of Political Studies.
“Some conservatives may criticize Lee Jae-myung … but this was a diplomatic gesture,” he said by phone Tuesday. “Generally, in summits, personal relationships are critically important, particularly for President Trump. So, this is a very good start.”
During a panel discussion hosted after the meeting by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Lee said he would boost defense spending by an unspecified amount to “transform the Korean military into a smart military that will prevail in future warfare.”
South Korea has increased its defense budget annually since 1975. Its budget this fiscal year is $43.7 billion, up approximately 3% from the previous year and about 2.32% of its gross domestic product.
“The approximately 200,000 Americans and 28,500 U.S. troops in Korea will be safer, and people in our two countries will lead more prosperous lives,” Lee said at the discussion.
He also signaled a shift in North Korean policy by suggesting the United States take the lead in setting the stage for potential peace talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Hahm said.
“If you become the peacemaker, then I will assist you by being the pacemaker,” Lee told Trump, who last met Kim at a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2018.
Seoul has traditionally been “the main engine” in organizing peace talks with Pyongyang, particularly during liberal presidential administrations, Hahm said.
The Lee administration may believe it has limited diplomatic leverage against North Korea, which has upgraded its war arsenal to become a global threat.
“North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles, so the … issue is not only the Korean Peninsula’s problem but also an international problem,” he said.
