100 Days of the Lee administration: Time for results people can feel
![President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a ceremony launching the National AI Strategy Committee at Seoul Square in central Seoul on Sept. 8. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/09/11/dccde06c-ccdc-4bac-88ae-80ae230a2608.jpg)
President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a ceremony launching the National AI Strategy Committee at Seoul Square in central Seoul on Sept. 8. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
President Lee Jae Myung marks his 100th day in office. Elected in a snap vote after the Dec. 3 martial law crisis and the impeachment that followed, he moved quickly. With no transition committee, he took office the day after the election, worked to normalize an emergency state, and set out to steady a battered economy. His first executive order launched an emergency economic task force, and the government issued nationwide shopping coupons to spur consumption.
The toughest early test was the U.S.–Korea tariff negotiation. Seoul agreed to invest $350 billion in the United States and to a mutual tariff rate of 15 percent. Details remain to be settled, but officials are credited with blocking additional openings in agriculture and livestock. Diplomacy has been steady, from a Korea–U.S. summit to a Korea–Japan meeting that reaffirmed trilateral cooperation. Live cabinet broadcasts and town halls signaled a willingness to communicate.
The first 100 days of a presidency often shape a term. Franklin D. Roosevelt set the template. Entering the White House amid the Great Depression, he won passage of 76 bills in his first 100 days. Banking and securities reforms, farm price supports, a regional power authority, and large public works laid the New Deal’s foundation and helped restore jobs and output.
With this milestone reached, Lee must deliver outcomes that households can feel. Statistics Korea reported a record employment rate in August, yet youth employment continued to decline for a 16th consecutive month. Labor force participation for people in their 60s now exceeds that of those in their 20s, and the number of 30-somethings not seeking work hit a record. Even so, the government’s jobs task force held its first meeting only on Sept. 10.
Lee has cast himself as a centrist pragmatist. Words alone will not suffice. The supermajority Democratic Party has prioritized measures that please hard-line supporters, such as prosecution reform and special counsel bills, rather than bread-and-butter legislation. While Lee says “business drives growth,” the ruling party is advancing Commercial Act changes and the Yellow Envelope Bill that companies oppose. Hopes for bipartisanship after Lee met party leaders faded when Democratic chief Jung Chung-rae delivered a combative floor speech the next day.
Above all, the administration needs tangible gains in daily life. Will housing prices, still rising despite loan curbs, cool under new supply measures? Will support for artificial intelligence translate into growth and youth jobs? Cooperation must move beyond slogans. Institutional fixes are needed, including constitutional reform to disperse presidential power. External risks can surface at any time, as shown by the detention of Korean workers in Georgia. Lee’s pledge of “competent pragmatism” will be proven only by how these tests are met.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
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