Incoming US ambassador 'honored to serve'

Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Calif. arrives for the State Dinner with U.S. President Joe Biden and Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House in Washington, April 26, 2023. AP-Yonhap

The U.S. Embassy in South Korea posted a video message Wednesday from incoming U.S. Ambassador Michelle Steel, greeting the Korean people ahead of her arrival in Seoul.

"I am so honored to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to South Korea," she said in the video posted on the embassy's X account, which included English subtitles and its Korean translation.

"I am just looking forward to meeting you all," she said.

Steel will "take post soon and look forward to further strengthening relations between the two countries," the embassy wrote alongside the video.

She is widely expected to arrive in Seoul soon, having cleared her Senate confirmation hearing and received the Korean government's formal consent for a foreign envoy's appointment.

Steel will become the second Korean American to serve as the U.S.'s top envoy to Seoul, following former Ambassador Sung Kim who held the post from 2011 to 2014.

Born in Seoul in 1955 under the Korean name Park Eun-joo, Steel immigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1975. She speaks fluent Korean.

During Trump's first term, she served on the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Steel was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2020 and reelected in 2022 before narrowly losing her reelection bid in 2024.