Trump Eyes US Shipbuilding Revival In South Korea Deal Talks

President Donald Trump said on Monday that he plans on restarting American shipbuilding in his deal with South Korea.

“We’re thinking about contracting some ships. They build them very well in South Korea,” he told reporters at the White House. “They were also thinking about coming to our country with some shipyards to start us on the process of building ships again.”

He highlighted that ships would be built using American labor. “We’re going to back into the shipbuilding business again,” he said during the bilateral meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

The two leaders also floated the idea of perhaps setting up a meeting between Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un. “If you become the peacemaker, I will assist you by becoming a pacemaker,” Lee said in response to Trump’s plans. “It’s good to get along with Kim-Jong Un, and it’s good to get along with everyone, including President Lee,” Trump responded.

Trump added that he might ask South Korea to grant the U.S. ownership of “the land where we have the big fort,” a reference that appeared to point to one of Washington’s longstanding military bases in the country.

The warm exchange of words comes after Trump said the reported raiding of churches in South Korea “seems like a purge or a revolution,” in a Truth Social post, earlier on Monday, ahead of the bilateral meeting. When addressing the matter on camera, Lee clarified that the authorities weren’t investigating the U.S. base but the South Korean army unit within the base. “I will explain it to you in more detail later,” he said, side-stepping giving any more details.

U.S. markets were mixed during afternoon trade on Monday. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) was down 0.14%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA) slipped 0.61% and the Nasdaq-100 tracking Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) was in the green, up 0.05%. However, retail sentiment around SPY on Stocktwits trended in ‘bullish’ territory over the past day.

Read also: Trump Says Putin’s Dislike Of Zelenskyy Is Delaying Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks

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