Korea-Japan summit to take place Tuesday, presidential office says
CALGARY, Canada — President Lee Jae Myung’s planned summit with US President Donald Trump will not proceed as scheduled Tuesday, the presidential office said Monday, following reports that Trump would depart Canada earlier than expected.
"Trump has suddenly decided to return home, and we will be unable to proceed with the bilateral talks (on Tuesday) as planned," Wi Sung-lac, director of national security at the presidential office, told reporters Monday, local time.
"These things happen often during multilateral summits," Wi also said, adding that the Israel-Iran conflict is presumed to be the cause of the delay.
Wi also said Lee's office"was notified of the delay" by Washington before its public announcement.
Lee's in-person meeting with Trump was highly anticipated amid uncertainties about tariffs to be imposed on Seoul by Washington. Trump was seeking to impose a 25 percent tariff against most South Korean goods in a move to improve the US trade balance. South Korea is one of more than 150 countries on which US"reciprocal" tariffs were to be imposed.
During his flight to Canada, Lee told reporters Monday that he would work to"ensure at least that (South Korea) will not be placed in a more disadvantageous situation."
According to the presidential office, Lee told his aides to"do it that way" when they suggested rescheduling the meeting.
The presidential office also stated that it was only planning a bilateral summit between Lee and Trump, and was not planning a three-way conversation involving the leaders of South Korea, the US and Japan on the occasion of the G7 summit.
In the time slot now empty due to Trump's departure, Lee may hold talks with one of the other leaders attending the G7 summit, and coordination for talks was underway, according to the presidential office.
Before Wi's briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced via X that Trump"will be leaving (the G7 summit) tonight after dinner" due to the situation in the Middle East.
Hours later, Trump said his early departure from the G7 summit in Canada on Monday had"nothing to do" with working on a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. Reuters reported, quoting a CBS reporter, that Trump said he was seeking a"real deal" to resolve the nuclear issue with Iran and suggested he might dispatch senior American officials for talks with the Islamic Republic.
While the proposed talks with Trump appear unlikely, efforts to arrange a separate meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba are moving forward.
"The bilateral talks between leaders of South Korea and Japan are scheduled to take place Tuesday," Wi said.
However, Lee is unlikely to sit down for formal talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the G7 period, according to Seoul.
Before Trump's departure, the leaders of some US trade partners managed to meet Trump in person.
Earlier on Monday, Trump held bilateral talks with his counterparts from the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan on the sidelines of the G7 summit in the Kananaskis region of Alberta, Canada, about 75 kilometers west of Calgary.
Notably, Trump said during his meeting with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that a trade deal between the two countries was"done." Under the deal, a 10 percent tariff on US imports of UK aerospace goods would be removed, while tariffs on car imports could be reduced from 27.5 percent to 10 percent.
"We signed it, and it's done. It's a fair deal for both. It'll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income," Trump told reporters in Canada.
As for other meetings, however, no concrete deals were immediately signed. Both Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japan's Ishiba said their negotiations with the US were ongoing.
