South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Friday stopped at the Massachusetts Statehouse ahead of a talk at Harvard University as he wrapped up a state visit to the United States.
Yoon was greeted on the steps of the historic gold-domed building in Boston just after noon by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey.
The two walked up the red-carpeted steps and into the front door of the state Capitol while the flag of South Korea fluttered in the breeze on one side of the building's front lawn.
Hong Doo-jung, 25, a public sector worker from Worcester, stood across from the Statehouse with several others protesting what he said was the South Korean president’s stance on unions. Hong could be heard yelling repeatedly "strikebreaker, boo" as the president ascended the stairs with Healey.
Yoon and Healey then sat down for a private lunch.
Later in the day, Yoon was scheduled to deliver a speech "on the challenges to freedom and the responses to them" at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge.
The stops in Boston and Cambridge come after Yoon visited Washington.
Yoon spoke to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday and praised the U.S.-South Korea security partnership since the Korean War seven decades ago as "the linchpin safeguarding our freedom, peace and prosperity."
Yoon and President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced an agreement for intensified nuclear deterrence to counter any North Korean threat.
Biden hosted a state dinner for Yoon and his wife that included big names from politics, business, sports and entertainment including actor Angelina Jolie, home improvement duo Chip and Joanna Gaines, and Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim.
