Join us for a candid discussion with Ambassador Joseph Yun, a highly respected career diplomat who has spoken often for WorldOregon audiences, who recently completed his service as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the United States Mission in the Republic of Korea. Ambassador Yun, who was appointed in early January 2025, just prior to the beginning of President Trump's inauguration, began his service as acting Ambassador, during the midst of South Korea's martial law crisis —leading the embassy during a dramatic nine-month period of South Korea’s political turmoil.
What is on the horizon as Presidents Donald Trump and Lee Jae Myung head the critical U.S.-ROK alliance? What are the consequences of the U.S. pressing for greater security and tariff burdens? New calculations for Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping? How are the South Korean public taking all this?
Don't miss this opportunity to glean rich, on-the-ground, first-person perspective from Ambassador Yun, one of the nation's leading experts on Korea, high-level diplomacy, and East Asian policy, more broadly.
Ambassador Joseph “Joe” Yun most recently served as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim at the United States Mission in the Republic of Korea. His previous diplomatic assignments include serving as U.S. Special Presidential Envoy to negotiate amendments to the Compact of Free Association (COFA), which governs the relationship between the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau. The negotiations concluded in October 2023 and were approved by Congress and enacted in March 2024. Amb. Yun’s other senior diplomatic assignments include serving as U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy (2016-18), U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia (2013-16), and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2011-2013). His earlier Foreign Service overseas assignments were in Hong Kong, Medan, Paris, Bangkok, and Seoul. Outside the U.S. government, Amb. Yun has been Senior Advisor with The Asia Group, a DC-based strategic consulting firm, and served at the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent and non-partisan federal institute working on peace and reconciliation issues throughout the globe. He holds a M. Phil. degree from the London School of Economics and a B.S. from the University of Wales.
