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Trump, Lee Hail Agreement on North Korea, Shipbuilding

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed optimism for close cooperation on North Korea, national security and shipbuilding, though the US leader downplayed the chances for further concessions on Seoul’s tariff deal.

“We can do big progress with North Korea,” Trump said at the White House on Monday alongside Lee.

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The South Korean leader launched a charm offensive on Trump, praising the gold finishes he added to the Oval Office and his peacekeeping efforts, and asked him to focus on ending tensions on the Korean peninusla. Lee even suggested that Trump could construct an eponymous tower in North Korea if peace is made.

Still, Trump indicated that the agreement for a 15% tariff on South Korean imports would likely stick as is, despite Seoul’s efforts to secure better terms.

“I hear they want to renegotiate the deal, but that’s OK, I don’t mind that. That doesn’t mean they’re going to get anything, but I don’t mind,” the US president said.

Trump said he’d like to have another meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and that the two had “became very friendly” over the course of two summits in his first term in office.

Trump also congratulated Lee on his election and said “we’re with you 100%,” despite comments earlier Monday that questioned political stability in South Korea and further exacerbated tensions with the decades-old ally.

Both leaders nodded to a burgeoning shipbuilding agreement, with Trump pledging to purchase ships from South Korea and Lee acknowledging Trump’s desire to have Korean shipbuilding in the US employing American workers. Lee’s government is expected to unveil about $150 billion in US investment plans from private companies.

The exchange of pleasantries in the Oval Office nonetheless took place against the backdrop of Trump’s comments earlier Monday about political instability in South Korea, following Lee’s remarks on his way to Washington that he “can’t simply accept” changes to the trade agreement.

The summit in Washington comes a few weeks after the two sides reached a last-minute trade deal that capped tariffs on US imports of South Korean goods at 15%, allowing Seoul to avoid the 25% rate that Trump had threatened to impose. But US officials have since signaled dissatisfaction over the terms.

The meeting was also expected to feature thorny issues, including reaching an agreement on defense cooperation, which Seoul initially tried to make part of the tariff deal. US officials have also been eager to pin down South Korea on the specifics of the $350 billion it pledged to invest in the US as part of the deal.

Trump earlier on Monday blasted South Korea for political instability on social media and elaborated on those comments during a signing of executive orders that stretched more than an hour, keeping Lee waiting past the leaders’ scheduled meeting time.

Trump mused on Truth Social that it seemed “like a Purge or Revolution” in South Korea, and later told reporters in the Oval Office that he’d heard “there were raids on churches over the last few days, very vicious raids on churches by the new government in South Korea, that they even went into our military base and got information.”

The US president quizzed his South Korean counterpart during their meeting about the raids but after Lee explained, Trump said “I am sure it’s a misunderstanding.” It was a sign Lee’s efforts to charm Trump paid off.

--With assistance from Paul Jackson and Meghashyam Mali.