Lee set to meet heads of major conglomerates ahead of Trump summit

Seoul, Aug 19 (IANS) President Lee Jae Myung is set to hold a meeting on Tuesday with heads of major business conglomerates who will accompany him on his trip to Washington for his planned summit talks with US President Donald Trump, the presidential office said.

Lee is set to meet with executives from key industries, including semiconductors, shipbuilding, automobiles, defence, biotechnology, and energy, which are considered central to industrial cooperation and agenda items for the upcoming summit with U.S. President Donald Trump on Aug. 25 in Washington, reports Yonhap news agency.

Among them are Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who also heads the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).

Others attendees include Korean Air Chief Executive Officer Cho Won-tae, Hanwha Group Vice Chairman Kim Dong-kwan, Hyundai Motor Group Vice Chairman Jang Jae-hoon, Doosan Enerbility Chairman Park Gee-won, and Celltrion Chairman Seo Jung-jin.

Lee's trip will mark his first summit with Trump and also includes a two-day stop in Tokyo for talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ahead of his visit to Washington.

The visit follows a recent trade agreement between Seoul and Washington that reduced the planned U.S. tariffs from 25 percent to 15 percent in exchange for South Korea's commitment to $350 billion in investment and $100 billion in U.S. energy purchases.

Of the pledged investment, $150 billion will be allocated to Seoul's shipbuilding cooperation initiative, dubbed "Make American Shipbuilding Great Again" (MASGA).

Trump may want a success from next week's summit with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung given that his high-profile talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week ended without a concrete deal, a U.S. expert said.

Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), made the remarks during a CSIS podcast, as Trump is set to meet with Lee at the White House next Monday, after he failed Friday to reach a deal with Putin over the war in Ukraine

"The U.S. president probably wants a success next week. He doesn't like failure to be followed by failure. So, he's probably going to want some sort of success next week," Cha said.

"And that may bode well for the meeting in addition to the fact that Koreans have put a lot on the table already, with US$350 billion plus the shipbuilding," he added, referring to last month's trade deal under which Seoul agreed to invest $350 billion in the U.S., among other things.

—IANS

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