The country's highest honor, the "Grand Order of Mugunghwa," will be given to U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday along with a replica gold crown, according to the presidential office.
On the last leg of a trip through Asia that already included stops in Malaysia and Japan, Trump arrived in South Korea. High profile trade negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung are anticipated.
A South Korean military band welcomed Trump on the tarmac with a performance of "YMCA" and guns fired a salute while U.S. and South Korean airplanes escorted Air Force One as it approached.
In protracted talks to reduce U.S. tariffs on South Korea, Lee hopes to gain concessions from Trump. He has courted the U.S. president by complimenting his outreach to North Korea.
According to Lee's administration, Trump will get the "Grand Order of Mugunghwa" in honor of his efforts as a "peacemaker" on the Korean peninsula. The order is named after South Korea's national flower, a pink hibiscus known in English as the Rose of Sharon.
Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un several times during his first term, but the negotiations broke down as Pyongyang accelerated the development of its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.
Trump extended his invitation to see Kim once more on Wednesday, but North Korea has not yet responded to his most recent advances.
Gyeongju, a peaceful tourist destination with historic tombs and palaces from its era as the capital of the ancient Silla kingdom, which dominated roughly one-third of the Korean peninsula until the ninth century, is where Lee and Trump will visit a museum.
A duplicate of the golden Cheonmachong crown will be given to Trump. The elegant original, with its towering gold prongs and hanging leaf designs, was discovered in a tomb in Gyeongju.
"This symbolizes the history of Silla, which maintained a long-term era of peace on the Korean Peninsula, and a new era of peaceful coexistence and common growth on the Korean Peninsula that the United States and South Korea will work together for."
Following that, the leaders would have a working lunch with Thousand Island salad dressing, which Lee's office claimed was a reference to Trump's "success story in his hometown of New York." Unidentified regional specialties are also offered on the menu "according to President Trump's preferences."
A meal with the leaders of Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, and Singapore will cap out the day.
According to three diplomatic sources, some of those leaders adjusted their schedules to make room for Trump, who arrived and will depart prior to the Friday and Saturday Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' conference.
