Posts claiming South Korean leader doctored Trump picture use AI-generated image
- Published on June 22, 2026 at 09:07
- 3 min read
- By Grace MOON, AFP South Korea
After South Korean President Lee Jae Myung shared a photo of him and Donald Trump taken at the G7 summit, social media users falsely claimed it was an AI manipulation of an earlier picture of the US president and jailed leader Yoon Suk Yeol. Elements of the photo, such as the presidents' attire and the decor of the restaurant in which they dined, correspond to other photos taken during the summit and its venue. The purported earlier photo of Trump and Yoon, however, was flagged as AI-generated by detection tools.
"The 'Lee Jae Myung-Trump' photo that is currently being widely shared across social media and online communities is a cleverly manipulated fake composite image," says part of a Korean-language Threads post shared on June 18, 2026.
The post includes a photo of Lee and Trump -- which was shared on the South Korean leader's X account on the same day -- alongside a nearly identical image in which Lee appears to have been replaced by Yoon (archived link).
The post claims that Lee had "manipulated" the Yoon-Trump image and includes a screenshot supposedly showing it was first posted to X on April 30, 2023.
Similar claims were shared in both Korean and English and spread after the conclusion of the G7 summit in France, where Trump signed a deal aimed at ending the war in the Middle East (archived link). Speculation has been rife that the Trump administration will next shift its diplomatic focus to North Korea.
Lee said he and Trump had discussed South Korea's long-running standoff with its nuclear-armed northern neighbour, adding that he told the US president that Russian assistance had rendered sanctions imposed on Pyongyang "ineffective" (archived link).
In addition to the photo with Trump, Lee also shared a picture of a pen he said Trump had gifted him. Both images were used in local news reports (archived here and here).
But an analysis of the photo of Lee and Trump, using the Hive Moderation AI detection tool, did not raise any flags that it was AI-generated (archived link).
The ties they are seen wearing in the photo match those in AFP-distributed pictures taken prior to the official G7 dinner on June 16.
The background also matches the décor of the Michelin-starred Les Fresques restaurant at the Hotel Royal in Evian, the French town where the G7 summit was held from June 15 to 17 (archived link).
Moreover, it also corresponds to a photo of the interaction taken from a different angle (archived link).
A spokesperson for the South Korean presidential office told AFP on June 19 that the photo is authentic and was not generated by AI.
A keyword search on X for posts shared by Yoon's official account on April 30, 2023 -- the date the false posts claim he posted a photo with Trump -- did not turn up any relevant posts.
Instead, Yoon posted about the "truly warmest welcome" he had received from then-US president Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden during a state visit to Washington (archived link).
In the post, Yoon quotes a video on Biden's X account highlighting the "shared beliefs" rooted in the US-South Korean alliance (archived link).
The two leaders met for a historic state dinner at the White House on April 26, 2023 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the alliance (archived link). The event was widely covered by the press, with clips showing Yoon singing snippets of Don McLean's "American Pie" (archived here and here).
A separate search of Trump's social media accounts also shows he did not post a photo with Yoon on that date. Official archival accounts for the 45th US president and the first Trump administration have not posted updates since January 2021 (archived here and here).
An analysis of the circulating image of Trump and Yoon found it was 96.9 percent likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.
AFP has previously debunked other misleading claims targeting Lee's relationship with other world leaders.
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