Trump nominates Korean American Michelle Eunjoo Steel as first U.S. ambassador to South Korea of his second term

According to Financial News, United States President Donald Trump has nominated Korean American politician Michelle Eunjoo Steel, whose Korean name is Park Eun-joo, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, as his first candidate for United States Ambassador to South Korea in his second-term Trump administration.
The White House announced the nomination for United States Ambassador to South Korea on its website on the 13th (local time) and requested confirmation by the United States Senate. Once the confirmation process is completed and she is formally appointed, the vacancy in the ambassadorship to South Korea that has continued for more than a year since Philip Goldberg, appointed under the previous Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. administration, left the post in January last year will finally be resolved.
Steel was born in Seoul in 1955 and immigrated to the United States of America with her family in 1975. While she was a homemaker, the 1992 Los Angeles riots made her acutely aware of the need for greater Korean American participation in politics, and with the help of her husband Shawn Steel, a lawyer and former chair of the California Republican Party, she entered public life.
She went on to serve as an elected member of the California State Board of Equalization and as a county supervisor in Orange County, California, before serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for four years starting in 2021. In the November 2024 election, she narrowly lost her seat by a margin of just over 600 votes. Shortly before that vote, in October 2024, President Donald Trump posted a message on his Social Networking Service (SNS) account formally endorsing her candidacy.
bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter