SEOUL — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met with Vietnam's General Secretary and President To Lam at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi on April 22, 2026, for a summit between the two countries. The two leaders shook hands before the talks began.

The summit was part of a series of state visits South Korea conducted to India and Vietnam in April 2026. In March 2026, South Korea made state visits to Singapore and the Philippines, and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto traveled to Seoul on a state visit that same month. "Vietnam's future is Korea's future," Lee said during the visit.

The five partner countries engaged through this diplomatic sequence — Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, and Vietnam — span the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Western Pacific. Vietnam is South Korea's third-largest trading partner and the top recipient of South Korea's cumulative outbound investment. More than 10,000 Korean firms operate in the country, which serves as a center for manufacturing value chains and high-tech industrial cooperation with South Korea.

Lee took office in June 2025. Since then, he has engaged counterparts at the G7, the United Nations, and the G20, and hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju. South Korea and Singapore established a strategic partnership in 2025.

South Korea's presidency is limited to a single five-year term, a structure under which signature foreign-policy initiatives rarely survive a change of government. The Hanoi summit marks one of Lee's most recent engagements in a regional diplomatic push that began shortly after he took office.