WASHINGTON, Aug 26 – US President Donald Trump met with visiting South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the White House on Monday.
According to Bloomberg, President Trump refused to change the terms of South Korea’s tariff agreement, despite a lobbying effort from President Lee during their first in-person meeting.
Trump and Lee on Monday expressed optimism for collective security and shipbuilding, yet the deal setting a 15% tariff on South Korean goods will remain unchanged according to the US president, Bloomberg reported.
According to NBC News, Lee met with Trump, touting a $150 billion offering called “Make America Shipbuilding Great Again.” The package includes the construction of new US shipyards, the training of shipbuilding personnel and US Navy ship maintenance.
As the topic turned to trade, Trump said the US and South Korea “need each other”.
Following his meeting with Trump at the White House, Lee said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that South Korea will increase defense spending as part of efforts to play a more “leading” role in bolstering its security posture on the Korean Peninsula, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Speaking to reporters at the White House during the outset of his meeting with visiting South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, Trump said he maintains a “very good relationship” with Kim Jong Un, top leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and looks forward to meeting him again, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
“I get along with him really well. I think he has a country of great potential, tremendous potential,” Trump said, according to Xinhua.
During Trump’s first presidential term, he and Kim first met in Singapore in June 2018, marking the first-ever US-DPRK summit. They met again in Hanoi, Vietnam in February 2019, and later that June in the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom, Xinhua reported.
