President Donald Trump is going to Japan and South Korea next week to promote an epic financial windfall — at least $900 billion in investments for U.S. factories, a natural gas pipeline and other projects.
Japan and South Korea made those financial commitments in August to try to get Trump to ratchet down his planned tariff rates from 25% to 15%. But as the U.S. president is set to depart Friday night for Asia, the pledges are more of a loose end
than money in the bank for American industry.
Japan pledged $550 billion in investments, but it wants the money to benefit its own companies, and its new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, is operating in an untested coalition government.
South Korea offered $350 billion — but wants a swap line for U.S. dollars, funded through loan guarantees, or else the commitment could sink its own economy. Trump maintains that he will personally direct how the money is spent, enabling him to pick winners and losers.
The October survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Hispanic adults have a “somewhat” or “very” favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before Trump took office in January.
The percentage of Hispanic adults who say the country is going in the wrong direction has also increased slightly over the past few months, from 63% in March to 73% now.
Trump said the television ad opposing U.S. tariffs misstated the facts and called it “egregious behavior” aimed at influencing U.S. court decisions.
The post on Trump’s social media site came after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he aims to double his country’s exports to countries outside the U.S. because of the threat posed by Trump’s tariffs.
Trump says he’s backing off a planned surge of federal agents into San Francisco after the CEOs of Nvidia and Salesforce urged him to give the city time. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff had faced a backlash after saying federal troops should come.
He also heard from Mayor Daniel Lurie, who said the city is making progress in reducing crime, so Trump agreed to let San Francisco keep trying on its own for now.
— Friday 11 p.m. EDT — The president set to depart.
— Sunday morning local time — Trump will arrive in Malaysia. Then he’ll meet Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and attend a working dinner for the leaders attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summits.
— Monday morning local time — Trump will fly to Tokyo.
— Tuesday morning local time — Trump meets with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
— Wednesday — Trump will fly to Busan, South Korea for a meeting with Korean President Lee Jae Myung. He is then scheduled to deliver keynote remarks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO luncheon and later participate in a working dinner with APEC leaders.
— Thursday morning local time — Trump will meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
— Thursday evening — Trump will fly back to the United States.
