Seoul: Almost six in 10 South Koreans believe that the recent summit between President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump advanced Korea's national interest, a poll showed Friday. Fifty-eight percent of some 1,000 respondents aged 18 and over gave the answer in a survey conducted by Gallup Korea from Tuesday through Thursday, following Lee's first summit talks with Trump in Washington on Monday (U.S. time).
According to Yonhap News Agency, of those surveyed, 32 percent said the summit was "highly beneficial," with 26 percent saying that the meeting was "a little beneficial." On the other hand, 23 percent said the summit did not serve the national interest, while 18 percent chose not to answer. Public approval for the summit was higher compared with poll results for former President Yoon Suk Yeol's overseas trips shortly after he took office in 2022.
Approval for Yoon's attendance at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit stood at 48 percent, while 33 percent viewed his state visits to Britain and the United States in September of that year positively. When asked to rate the favorability of foreign leaders, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba scored the highest at 27 percent, though his disapproval rating was 51 percent.
Trump's favorability stood at 24 percent, with a 67 percent disapproval rating. Chinese President Xi Jinping received 10 percent favorability and 76 percent disapproval, while Russian President Vladimir Putin's ratings were 4 percent and 88 percent, respectively. The latest survey, conducted over phone, has a 95 percent confidence level with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.