President Donald Trump arrived in Hawaii on Friday as he set out on the longest trip to Asia by an American president in more than a quarter century, looking for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from a nuclear crisis.
HONOLULU (Reuters) – President Donald Trump arrived in Hawaii on Friday as he set out on the longest trip to Asia by an American president in more than a quarter century, looking for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from a nuclear crisis.
After Air Force One landed at Joint Base Hickam, Trump and his wife, Melania, were draped with traditional lei necklaces. Trump went on to nearby Camp Smith for a classified briefing from Pacific Command military leaders that officials expected would touch on North Korea and other areas.
Later, he was to visit Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona memorial for the U. S. sailors killed when Japan bombed the American naval base on Dec. 7,1941.
Trump’s 12-day trip to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, ending on Nov. 14, takes him out of Washington at a time when he has been beset by several issues.
These include an intensifying federal investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election, New York’s recovery from an attack earlier this week that killed eight people, and debate over a Republican tax-cut plan that if approved by Congress would be Trump’s first major legislative victory.
The trip began just days after Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was indicted in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and after his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, faced Democratic calls to appear before Congress again to clarify his previous testimony about the campaign’s Russia contacts.
Amid the furor caused by the revelations, the Kremlin said on Friday that a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an Asian economic summit next week was being discussed, and Trump said it might happen.
