Who is Michelle Park Steel, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Korea?

Michelle Park Steel, then vice chair of the Orange County Board of Supervisors in California, speaks during a meeting with Korean correspondents at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., May 20, 2016, outlining her views on serving as a bridge between the United States and Korea. Yonhap

U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Michelle Park Steel, Monday (local time), a former Republican congresswoman from California, as ambassador to South Korea, a move that could end a vacancy that has lasted for more than 15 months.

If confirmed by the Senate, Steel would become the second Korean American to serve in the post, after former Ambassador Sung Kim, who served from 2011 to 2014.

Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul welcomed the nomination, with foreign ministry spokesperson Park Il saying Korea is in close communication with the U.S. and that Steel, if formally appointed, "is expected to contribute to strengthening bilateral ties and promoting friendship between the two countries."

The nomination drew attention not simply because of Steel's ethnic background, but because she comes from an elected office rather than the foreign service.

In Washington and Republican circles, she has long been viewed as a Trump ally with direct political access, someone capable of carrying the administration’s message to Seoul more directly than a conventional diplomat.

Her husband, Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party, is also a well-known figure in conservative networks.

Path into politics

Steel was born in Seoul in 1955, spent part of her youth in Japan and moved to the U.S. in the mid-1970s. She studied at Pepperdine University and later received an MBA from the University of Southern California. She is also known to speak fluent Korean.

Her path into politics was shaped less by ideology at first than by lived experience. Reports say she was influenced by seeing her mother struggle with tax issues in the U.S., exposing a gap between immigrants and the system.

Then came the 1992 Los Angeles riots, which devastated many Korean American businesses. Steel has said that this period deepened her conviction that Korean Americans needed a stronger voice in mainstream politics.

She entered public life after participating in the campaign of a Los Angeles mayoral candidate in 1993. She then moved through a series of local and state posts, including serving on the California State Board of Equalization and the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

She built a reputation in Southern California as a tenacious campaigner, winning races in areas that typically leaned Democratic. She carried that base into national politics, winning a House seat in 2020 and winning reelection in 2022 despite redrawn district lines, before losing by roughly 600 votes in 2024.

North Korean roots, hawkish perspective

Steel's politics are firmly conservative, particularly in her views on North Korea and China.

Born shortly after the 1950-53 Korean War ended, she grew up with a family history of parents who had fled North Korea and been displaced by the war, an experience she has spoken about publicly.

In a social media video, she said that her parents escaped the North and lost everything before finding the opportunity to build a better life in the U.S.

Trump later highlighted this background when he endorsed her, calling her an “America First patriot” whose family fled communism.

This history has continued to shape her record in Congress.

She pushed for a tougher U.S. stance on Beijing, joined the House committee focused on China and spoke out about human rights abuses, intellectual property theft and the plight of North Korean defectors in China.

She also emphasized the importance of closer trilateral coordination between South Korea, the U.S. and Japan.

She was also active in Korea-related legislation and advocacy. During her time in Congress, she supported family reunions for Korean Americans separated from relatives in North Korea, backed the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, called for greater vaccine support for Korea during the pandemic and joined efforts to counter historical revisionism over Japan’s wartime sex slavery system.

However, she opposed the Moon Jae-in government’s efforts toward an end-of-war declaration in 2021, aligning herself with other Republicans.

Steel will undergo Senate confirmation hearings before taking office, a process that usually takes several months.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Korea Philip Goldberg, nominated in February 2022, was confirmed in May and arrived in Seoul in July, a process that took about five months.