President Donald Trump said Monday that his bilateral meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung would center around trade and shipbuilding.
Trump revealed the topics of discussion to reporters as the two sat for a press gaggle ahead of their private meeting.
“We’re going to have some very serious discussions about different things, including trade. We do a lot of trade with South Korea, as you know,” Trump said.
“We are thinking about contracting some ships,” he added. “They build them very well in South Korea. They’re also thinking about coming to our country with some shipyards to start us on the process of building ships again.”
Trump called the current state of the United States’ shipbuilding industry “ridiculous” compared to what it once was:
We were building ships all the time for everybody, and presidents and people allowed that to slip by, and now we buy ships, but we’re going to be buying ships from South Korea, but we’re also going to have them make ships here with our people, using our people, and we’re going to go back into the shipbuilding business again.
During the portion of the meeting before the press briefing, Lee told Trump that North Korea would not have furthered its nuclear capabilities as it did over the Biden years if Trump had been president instead.
Lee emphasized, “The situation on the Korean Peninsula was stable” in Trump’s first term, but there was a change for the worse under Biden.
“But during the short hiatus where you were out of office, North Korea developed further its nuclear and missile capabilities, and that led to a deterioration on the situation of the Korean Peninsula,” Lee said.
“They would not have done that if I were president,” Trump responded.
“I completely agree with you,” Lee said.
Hours ahead of the meeting, Trump took to Truth Social to question social unrest in South Korea in a potential harbinger of what could be another topic of discussion.
“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Lee left the White House just after 3:00 p.m. ET, per the White House press pool.
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