President Lee begins longest overseas trip to US, South America

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung departed on July 24 for an extensive 11-day, 7-night tour of the United States and three South American countries: Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. This marks his longest overseas trip since taking office.

A major highlight of the tour is the "San Francisco AI Summit," which will bring together prominent leaders from South Korean and U.S. artificial intelligence companies. This gathering, featuring eight key figures including Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Lee Jae-yong of Samsung Electronics, and Chey Tae-won of SK Group, is considered an unusual and significant event for U.S.-Korea AI cooperation. The summit is expected to see the announcement of new contracts and strategic partnerships between companies from both nations.

President Lee's itinerary begins in San Francisco, where he will meet with CEOs of global AI giants like Nvidia, OpenAI, Broadcom, and Anthropic. The AI Summit will follow, gathering top executives from South Korea's leading tech firms. Following his U.S. engagements, President Lee will visit Brazil, Chile, and Argentina from July 26, holding summit talks with their respective leaders. Notably, this marks the first official visit to Argentina by a South Korean president in 22 years.

The South American leg of the tour aims to expand trade and investment, targeting a combined market of 280 million people and a GDP of approximately $3.7 trillion. Discussions with Brazil and Argentina will focus on resuming trade agreement negotiations with Mercosur, while talks with Chile will center on modernizing the Korea-Chile Free Trade Agreement. Cooperation on critical resources is also a key agenda item, with Brazil being a major exporter of rare earths and agricultural products, Chile a leader in copper and lithium, and Argentina rich in shale gas and soybean oil. The tour seeks to strengthen strategic partnerships in critical mineral supply chains and diversify food and energy import sources.