page_title: Park Geun-hye
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Park Geun-hye / Presidency / First year (February 2013 – February 2014) / Foreign policy / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: President Barack Obama holds a bilateral meeting with President Park Geun-hye of the Republic of Korea, in the Oval Office, May 7, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
context_page_description: Park Geun-hye is a former South Korean politician who served as President of South Korea from 2013 to 2017. Park was the first woman to be President of South Korea and also the first female president popularly elected as head of state in East Asia. She was also the first South Korean president to be born after the founding of First Republic of Korea; her predecessors were born either during the Joseon dynasty, Japanese rule or during the post-World War II American occupation. Her father, Park Chung-hee, was the President of South Korea from 1963 to 1979, serving five consecutive terms after he seized power in 1961.
  Before her presidency, Park was chairwoman of the conservative Grand National Party from 2004 to 2006 and 2011 to 2012. She was also a member of the National Assembly, serving four consecutive parliamentary terms between 1998 and 2012. She started her fifth term as a representative elected via national list in June 2012. In 2013 and 2014, Park ranked 11th on the Forbes list of the world's 100 most powerful women and the most powerful woman in East Asia.
context_section_description: After taking office, Park met with John Kerry and U.S. President Barack Obama. Park's trip to the United States in May 2013 was her first foreign trip after taking office.
  Like many of her predecessors, Park has maintained a close relationship with the U.S., which has over 20,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea. During her visit to the U.S., she addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress, where she called for a united front against any North Korean provocations. Park also called for a strong global relationship between South Korea and the United States.
  Park assesses the security situation on the Korean Peninsula and emphasized that deterrence capabilities were the most important factor for security. Thus, Park considers the American-South Korean alliance as the most successful one in the world. And she hopes the American-South Korean relationship can be upgraded from a comprehensive strategic alliance to a global partnership.
  Park visited the United States on her first overseas trip as president. She traveled to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles on 5–9 May 2013.
  During summit talks in May at the White House, Presidents Park and Obama adopted a joint declaration for the American-South Korean alliance and discussed ways to further develop the bilateral relations in a future-forward manner. Also, two leaders discussed ways to promote cooperation in building peace in the Northeast Asian region and strength the partnership between Seoul and Washington.
  The two leaders of South Korea and the United States agreed to adopt a joint statement on comprehensive energy cooperation to build a foundation for a future growth engine and establish a policy cooperation committee on information and communication technology. In addition, Park urged her U.S. counterpart to expand the annual U.S. visa quota for South Korean professionals in order to promote co-development of both economies.
  In particular, the "Joint declaration in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Alliance between the Republic of Korea and the United States of America" adopted by South Korea and the United States will become a meaningful document looking back at the past six decades of the alliance and spelling out a new direction for the development of bilateral relations over the coming decade.
caption: Park Geun-hye at a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama on 7 May 2013
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