For nearly 18 months, one of Washington’s most important embassies operated without a Senate-confirmed ambassador. With the confirmation of former Republican congresswoman Michelle Steel, the United States finally has an ambassador to South Korea. 

Her arrival in Seoul carries considerable symbolic significance. As a Korean American, Steel reflects the deep human ties that have long complemented the military and strategic foundations of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. But symbolism can be both an asset and a liability. 

Steel’s appointment comes at a moment when political polarization has become a defining feature of both U.S. and South Korean politics. Unlike many of her predecessors, she comes to her ambassador post not as a career diplomat but as a politician whose public profile was shaped by electoral combat. Of course, many successful ambassadors have come from politics rather than diplomacy. Yet Steel faces political risks that previous U.S. envoys to Seoul encountered only to a limited degree. Ironically, some of those risks arise from the very qualities that make her appointment historically significant.

Steel is not the first Korean American to represent Washington in Seoul. Sung Kim, who served as ambassador from 2011 to 2014, also brought cultural familiarity and personal ties to the position. Yet Kim’s tenure unfolded in a very different political environment. He operated during a period when neither the United States nor South Korea had yet become consumed by the ideological polarization that increasingly shapes both societies today. Kim’s heritage primarily served as a bridge. Steel may find that the same ethnic identity carries different expectations. 

Unlike Sung Kim, a career diplomat with decades of experience whose Korean heritage largely stood apart from his professional identity, Steel arrives in Seoul with both an ethnic affinity and a distinctly partisan political brand. It is the combination of the two – not either one alone – that makes her tenure potentially more complicated.

The first challenge facing the new ambassador is the risk of becoming too politically familiar. Diplomats traditionally benefit from a degree of distance. They represent the interests of their governments, not the passions of their host countries. Their authority depends in part on remaining above domestic political battles. Yet Steel’s Korean heritage may encourage some South Koreans to view her less as Washington’s representative and more as someone who possesses a special affinity with Korea itself.

Such sentiments are understandable, but familiarity can create unrealistic expectations. Political actors often prefer to see foreign figures through the lens of their own domestic struggles. A Korean American ambassador can easily be portrayed as a “hometown figure” whose background implies sympathy for particular political causes. Ethnic affinity, in other words, can create pressures as well as goodwill.

Steel’s political profile also differs from that of previous ambassadors. During her congressional campaigns in California, she frequently emphasized anti-communist themes and concerns about Chinese influence, messages that resonated with parts of her district’s Asian American electorate. Critics argued that some of her campaign messaging amplified concerns about Chinese influence for political purposes and resorted to race-backed attacks, while supporters viewed it as a legitimate response to growing concerns about China. Regardless of where one stands, those campaigns helped shape Steel’s public profile – one more associated with partisan politics than traditional diplomacy.

A second and perhaps more significant challenge is political appropriation. Over the past several years, elements of South Korea’s conservative movement have increasingly echoed themes and rhetoric familiar to U.S. politics, including allegations of electoral fraud and concerns about Chinese Communist Party influence. 

Even before Steel’s arrival, some conservative commentators welcomed her appointment as evidence that Washington was becoming more aligned with their worldview. Her appointment was read as a “warning to the Lee Jae Myung administration.” Such reactions reveal less about Steel herself than about the temptation to treat U.S. political identities as extensions of South Korea’s domestic conflicts.

The danger is that competing political camps will project their own expectations onto her. Conservatives may see her as an ideological ally, whereas progressives may view her primarily through the lens of American partisan politics. Both interpretations would transform the ambassador from a diplomatic figure into a political symbol.

South Korea is hardly unique in this regard. As political identities and media become increasingly transnational, alliances themselves are becoming more vulnerable to the passions of domestic politics.

Ordinary policy disagreements are manageable. Washington and Seoul have weathered disputes over trade, burden-sharing, North Korea, and China for decades. Such disagreements are ultimately questions of policy, and policies can be negotiated. Symbolism and identity are more difficult to manage because they operate on emotion rather than strategic calculation.

That is what makes the comparison with Sung Kim particularly revealing. During his tenure, few South Koreans viewed him through an ideological lens. He was an American diplomat of Korean heritage. Today, however, ethnicity, ideology, and partisanship are increasingly intertwined. The challenge confronting Michelle Steel is therefore less about diplomacy than about perception. The same Korean heritage that once served primarily as a bridge now risks becoming a source of political contestation.

Steel’s greatest challenge in Seoul may not be China, North Korea, or burden-sharing negotiations. Her more difficult task may be preserving the political distance necessary for diplomacy – and avoiding entanglement in South Korea’s domestic political battles.

Whether her historic appointment becomes another bridge between Washington and Seoul, or an unintended symbol of polarization on both sides of the Pacific, will depend not only on the ambassador herself, but on the political maturity of both democracies.