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00:00South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has taken the oath of office pledging to restore the economy and the people's livelihoods while seeking what he calls pragmatic diplomacy. Earlier, he claimed victory with 49% of votes, calling for unity after months of bitter political division. While politicians may clash over interests and drawing lines between factions, the people are not bound to follow those divisions. People are the master of this nation, and politicians are workers who are responsible for people's lives. Political conflicts may not be avoidable, but the people don't have to be divided and hate each other. Bloomberg anchor Shery Ahn joins us from our Seoul studio to take us through Lee's road to becoming president and what his economic agenda will look like. Lots of challenges ahead. It was a very long road for President Lee Jae-myung. After narrowly losing to ousted president Yoon Suk-yeol back in 2022. A human rights lawyer, a long time politician, he survived an assassination attempt just last year. He's finally become President of South Korea. And of course, as he was giving his speech at the National Assembly, being sworn in, in a very simplified ceremony today, he really emphasized the need to revitalize the South Korean economy. He said that he wanted to really bring back a virtuous cycle for the South Korean economy, wanted to focus on renewables as well. He wanted to change regulation to support businesses at the same time. And of course, we have heard about fostering cultural industrial push as well, given of course of the excitement and also the upside coming from cultural exports here in South Korea. He is more left leaning. We know that he favors state led growth, he favors fiscal expansion. We heard in the campaign trail that he wants a stimulus package of around 35 trillion won. That would be more than $25 billion. We are expecting also more labor protections, a bigger focus on the supply of housing and perhaps some changes to how these huge chaebols in South Korea, the conglomerates, are also run. Well, Shery, when it comes to the challenges ahead, one of the main things is how he's going to deal with the Trump tariffs and trade ties with the U.S.. Yes, right now temporarily scaled back to 10%. The across the board tariffs in South Korea are one of the highest among America's allies at 25%. Now, President Lee Jae-myung has talked about wanting a solid alliance with the United States, but he's also cautioned about reaching an agreement too fast without looking into the details. He, in fact, said that that July package that they want to achieve with Washington should not be hurried. So he wants a time in order not to rush into clinching a deal. We have heard that perhaps we could see older administration officials from the previous administration helping out in crafting a deal. Of course, this is a very fast transition period. The President right now busy trying to put a cabinet in place. But at the same time, we heard from our local media, Yonhap News, that perhaps President Lee may have the chance to talk to President Trump directly on Wednesday. So we'll be waiting to see if that phone call actually goes ahead and happens. We heard from Secretary Marco Rubio already talking about wanting to modernize relations with South Korea. That's right. It is about navigating geopolitics. How do we know? What idea might that be about how he'll deal with North Korea? Also ties with Japan and China. President Lee Jae-myung has been interesting in the campaign trail because he's toned down a lot of his more strong rhetoric against the United States and also in economic policies as well. Right now, we understand that he wants more balanced ties with China and Russia as well. He's talked about not wanting to be unilaterally bound to America's interests, and he actually wants more balanced ties also with China, which perhaps suggests a friendlier approach. Of course, the key question will be how he navigates Washington's pressure to put export controls on advanced tech, a key export for South Korea with really exports accounting for 40% of South Korea's GDP. When it comes to relations with North Korea, even in his speech at the National Assembly just today, he talked about wanting to open a channel of communication with Pyongyang, which might get trickier given Pyongyang's deepening ties with Russia in its war on Ukraine. When it comes to Japan, a very tricky relationship here. We know his Democratic Party's historical grievances against Tokyo. It is already this year, the 60th year since the colonization by Japan on South Korea. So that will also play into the factor. But we know that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has already come out congratulating President Lee Jae-myung, on his victory in this election, saying that he wants to energize the relationship.

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South Korea’s Lee Kicks Off Presidency

South Korea’s newly elected President Lee Jae-myung took office with a pledge to revive the nation’s tariff-hit economy and seek dialogue with North Korea to diffuse tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Bloomberg TV's Shery Ahn speaks on Insight with Haslinda Amin about the newly elected leader. (Source: Bloomberg)

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