Trump nominates Korean-American Michelle Park Steel as first ambassador to Korea in his second term [Screenshot from Congresswoman Michelle Park Steel's Facebook]

Michelle Park Steel (70), a former US House of Representatives member nominated by US President Donald Trump on April 13 (local time) as the candidate for the US ambassador to Korea, is a prominent Korean-American politician from the Republican Party. Newsmax, a conservative US media outlet, had predicted her potential appointment as US ambassador to Korea as early as December 2024.

Born in Seoul in 1955, Steel's Korean name is 'Park Eun-joo'. She immigrated to the United States with her family in the mid-1970s, shortly after turning 20, and has been living in California ever since.

If confirmed as ambassador after congressional hearings and confirmation, it will be a triumphant return to Korea as a diplomat representing the US administration, approximately 50 years after her immigration to the United States.

Steel was elected to the House of Representatives twice, in 2020 and 2022, representing California. She was re-elected even after her district was adjusted from the 45th to the 48th district, but she narrowly lost her bid for a third term in 2024 by about 600 votes.

Starting with her election to the California State Board of Equalization in November 2006, she won six consecutive elections, big and small, in an area with strong Democratic support, earning her the nickname 'Queen of Elections' locally.

After marrying her American husband, lawyer Shawn Steel, she was a housewife. However, witnessing the destruction of Korean-American livelihoods during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, she was reportedly moved by the inability of Korean voices to be properly conveyed to mainstream American society, which led her to decide to enter politics.

Starting by joining the campaign of Richard Riordan, who ran for Mayor of Los Angeles in 1993, she built a career as a Los Angeles City Fire Commissioner, President of the Korean-American Republican Association, and a member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, earning the nickname 'Iron Lady' based on her surname.

Notably, in 2020, she was elected to the House of Representatives alongside fellow Korean-Americans Andy Kim (Democrat-New Jersey), Marilyn Strickland (Democrat-Washington), and Young Kim (Republican-California), drawing attention to the presence of two Korean-Americans from each party in the federal legislature.

Among them, Steel, who honed her skills in Los Angeles, a city with a large Korean-American community, is renowned for her deep understanding of the Korean-American community, deeper than that of other Korean-American politicians. She is fluent not only in English but also in Korean, and it is said that she has no communication issues with Koreans.

Her political inclination is considered deeply conservative. Her husband, lawyer Steel, served as Chairman of the California Republican Party and is known to have played a significant role in her entry into national politics.

She aligned with President Trump's "America First" policy on foreign and security matters, which is why she was mentioned early on as a candidate for the next ambassador to Korea shortly after President Trump's re-election.

Steel has also actively contributed to the establishment of the White House's Asia-Pacific policy, serving as an advisory committee member for Asian and Pacific Islanders under former President George W. Bush in 2001 and as co-chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders during the first Trump administration in 2019.

As a freshman congresswoman in 2021, she joined other Republican lawmakers in opposing the "declaration of an end to the Korean War" proposed by the then South Korean government under President Moon Jae-in.

In a post on his social media (SNS) before the 2024 election, President Trump expressed his support for Steel, stating, "His family are America First patriots who escaped communism." This was seen as a reference to Steel's family history, with her father reportedly born in Shanghai, China.