The Scene-Stealer at the South Korea-U.S. Summit: Former Homemaker "Dr. Lee"

Yeonhyang Lee, Trump's Interpreter at North Korea-U.S. Summits,
Appears at Meeting with President Lee
Served as Interpreter for Obama and Biden as Well
Trusted Across Conservative and Liberal Administrations

At the South Korea-U.S. summit held at the White House on the 25th (local time), a familiar face appeared as interpreter for U.S. President Donald Trump: Yeonhyang Lee, head interpreter at the U.S. State Department. Lee, who is of Korean descent, drew attention for serving as President Trump's interpreter during his first term at the historic summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

On the 25th (local time), at a meeting between President Lee Jae-myung and U.S. President Donald Trump held at the White House in Washington DC, Yeonhyang Lee, head interpreter of the U.S. State Department, is interpreting for President Trump. Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

On this day, Lee demonstrated her skilled interpretation by diligently taking notes on a notepad and seamlessly translating President Trump's lengthy remarks into Korean. Known within the State Department as "Dr. Lee," she served as President Trump's voice and ears at the first North Korea-U.S. summit in Singapore in June 2018, the second summit in Hanoi in February 2019, and the third meeting at Panmunjom in June 2019. At a discussion hosted by the Korea Economic Institute of America last year, Lee recalled her experience as "amazing and exciting," as well as "unreal."

Lee has been active on major diplomatic stages for U.S. presidents, regardless of conservative or liberal administrations, including President Barack Obama's visit to Korea in 2014 and the 2022 summit between President Joe Biden and President Yoon Suk-yeol. The weekly news magazine TIME once described her as an "unsung hero." In 2022, during the previous Biden administration, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken introduced Lee in a video about the State Department's interpretation team, saying, "She is truly an essential member of the State Department's diplomatic interpretation team, and we could not do our work without her and her team."

Lee, who graduated from Yonsei University's Department of Vocal Music, became a full-time homemaker after marriage, but on a friend's recommendation, she passed the entrance exam for the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in 1989. Recognized for her abilities, she was appointed as a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in 1996. From the early 2000s, Lee began working as a Korean interpreter for the U.S. State Department. She briefly returned to Korea in 2004 to teach at Ewha Womans University's Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation, but has been working on the front lines of interpretation since returning to the State Department in 2009.