Marcos plans to meet with Trump

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PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. yesterday said he intends to meet with United States President Donald Trump to discuss trade, defense and security, and his policy on immigration.

“I will meet with President Trump because I should. Because there’s much that we need to discuss between the US and the Philippines in terms of trade, in terms of defense and security, and now the new policy on immigration,” the President, in an interview on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Mactan-Cebu-International Airport parallel runway in Cebu City.

“I think several hundreds of Filipinos have been sent back. So, this is something that we have to work through and hopefully resolve,” he said in mixed Filipino and English.

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Marcos said there are many Filipinos who are in the US, including those who have formed a very important part of the American workforce.

“So, we’ll see how we can influence the policy-making in terms of immigration,” he added.

Acting Communications Secretary Cesar Chavez said no date has been set for the President’s visit to the US and the meeting with Trump.

The Department of Foreign Affairs earlier said there are about 300,000 Filipinos who are illegally staying in the US and “a few hundred or less” of the undocumented Filipinos have already been deported under the Trump presidency.

The President, meanwhile, said it is difficult to comment on the US’ temporary suspension of foreign assistance as the policy is still “not yet clear.”

Marcos said even the government agencies in the US are still unclear on what the freeze order covers.

He expects the issue to become clearer by the time he and Trump meet.

“And by which time, I will have a chance to visit with President Trump and we can discuss it with a better understanding of what the policies are,” he added.

The US State Department issued a freeze order on all its assistance and aid packages to foreign countries pending review by the new administration.

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