SEOUL (Reuters) -The U.S. named Kevin Kim as its acting ambassador to South Korea, the American embassy in Seoul said on Monday, as the Trump administration swaps out representatives ahead of the president’s visit to South Korea on Wednesday.
“Kevin Kim has been appointed Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim, at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul,” the embassy said in a post on social media.
The move came after the previous acting ambassador left his position last week, just days before U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to visit South Korea for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Before his latest appointment, Kim was the State Department’s senior bureau official for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and deputy assistant secretary for Japan, Korea, and Mongolia.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
