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President Joe Biden kicked off his trip to Asia by meeting South Korea’s new President Yoon Seok-youl in the lobby of a Samsung micro-chip facility Friday evening and taking a factory tour.
‘This is an auspicious start to my visit, because it’s emblematic of the future cooperation and innovation our nations can and must build together,’ Biden said, delivering remarks alongside Yoon after touring two parts of the enormous Pyeongtaek facility.
Biden and Yoon, along with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, toured a floor of the facility and received a technical briefing on how semiconductor wafers are made.
Biden was told which components were American, with a representative from the California-based company KLA on hand to tell the president about his company’s part of the process.
‘Don’t forget to vote Peter. You may live here, but don’t forget to vote,’ Biden told the worker after he gave his presentation during the tour.
Biden thanked President Yoon, although he stumbled over his name after getting it right the first time after a long flight.
‘And President Moon – Yoon – you thank you everything you’ve done,’ Biden said. Yoon’s predecessor is President Moon Jae-in.
Biden also misstated the name of the facility in Taylor, Texas, where Samsung plans to spend billions. He called it Tyler, Texas.
President Joe Biden (right) arrives at the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus on Friday and greets South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-yeol (left)
President Joe Biden (center) receives a tour Friday of the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus in South Korea alongside (from left) Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong
President Joe Biden greets a worker at the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus in Pyeongtaek, South Korea on Friday, his first stop in Asia
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong talks with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo as she and U.S. President Joe Biden visit a semiconductor factory
Biden lauded a Samsung investment in a new Texas factory
New South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol spoke after the tour of the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus in Pyeongtaek, South Korea
Biden landed at Osan Air Base Fearly Friday evening after stopping in Anchorage for a refueling stop.
The president wore a black face mask as he walked down the jetway as he entered a country that has been battling an increase in COVID-19 cases and has an indoor mask mandate.
It is Biden’s first trip to Asia as president, and comes after he has been intensely focused on domestic issues including inflation, the pandemic, and the baby formula crisis – plus Russia’s war on Ukraine.
En route, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was asked what it would mean for Biden’s visit if North Korea conducts another ballistic missile or nuclear test while the president is here.
‘This could cause the United States only to increase our fortitude in terms of defending our allies and cause adjustments to the way that our military is postured in the region,’ Sullivan responded.
Air Force One with U.S. President Joe Biden arrives at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Friday, May 20, 2022. The president will tour a Samsung factory at the start of his first trip to Asia as president
South Korea’s Foreign Minister Park Jin greets U.S. President Joe Biden as he arrives at Osan Air Base (ROK) in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, May 20, 2022
‘As far as the trip is concerned, I think all it would do is underscore, it would underscore one of the main messages that we are sending on this trip, which is that the United States is here for our allies and partners. We are here to help provide deterrence and defense for the ROK and Japan. We will respond to any threats and any aggression decisively,’ he added.
North Korea has already conducted 15 ballistic missile tests this year, as well as seven nuclear tests.
South Korea’s spy agency has said North Korea has been making preparations for another test.
Sullivan warned Wednesday, before the start of the trip, that ‘Our intelligence does reflect the genuine possibility that there will be either a further missile test, including long-range missile test, or a nuclear test, or frankly both in the days leading into, on or after the president’s trip to the region.’
“We are preparing for all contingencies, including the possibility that such a provocation would occur while we are in Korea or in Japan,’ he added.
Pedestrians walk past banners calling for strength of the South Korea-US alliance near the US embassy in Seoul on May 20, 2022, ahead of US President Joe Biden’s visit to South Korea
Biden toured the Samsung Electronics Co. semiconductor manufacturing plant in Pyeongtaek
‘Crown Prince of Samsung’ exec Jay Y. Lee is excused from fraud trial hearing so he can host Biden’s tour of semi-conductor plant in Seoul
Samsung’s powerful executive has been granted permission to miss a day of his fraud trial so that he can accompany President Joe Biden on his tour of a model for a U.S. plant that could help abate the semi-conductor chip supply chain shortage.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee has been excused from attending an accounting fraud trial hearing on Friday, a court spokesperson said, as he is expected to host the U.S. President’s tour of a semiconductor plant in South Korea.
Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will visit the company’s Pyeongtaek Campus Friday. It is a model for the new Samsung plant being built in Taylor, Texas.
The company announced last year that it will build a $17 billion plant near Austin. It would make advanced logic semiconductors.
‘The stop will demonstrate how our alliances deliver for the American middle class by investing in manufacturing in the United States, creating good paying jobs, and strengthening our supply chains,’ according to the White House.
Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman, Jay Y. Lee has been accused from attending his fraud trial as he is set to host President Joe Biden on his tour of a semiconductor plant
Biden has also repeatedly touted chip plants that Intel has announced it will build in Ohio.
Although the defendant’s attendance is required as a rule to ensure his right to defend in Korea, the Seoul Central District Court granted Lee’s request to not attend as witnesses’ testimony can be recorded and the defendant notified, the spokesperson said.
Lee is expected to be accompanying Biden during his tour of the world’s largest semiconductor plant located in the city of Pyeongtaek about 50 km (30 miles) from Seoul, South Korean media have said.
He is the grandfather of the company’s father and the successor to his father, and is sometimes referred to as the ‘Crown Prince of Samsung’ in the Korean media.
It will be Biden’s first stop during the South Korean leg of his first Asian trip as U.S. president.
He also plans to deliver a speech there, where according to the White House he will push for speedy passage of the Bipartisan Innovation Act, ‘which will deliver historic federal investments in U.S. research and development, supply chains, and domestic manufacturing.’ He also plans to repeat his pitch that tackling inflation is his top priority.
President Joe Biden speaks as Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto (L) and Sweden’s prime minister Magdalena Andersson (R) listen during a news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House on May 19, 2022 in Washington, DC. He plans to meet executives on his trip to the Republic of Korea
Biden will tour the Samsung Electronics Co. semiconductor manufacturing plant in Pyeongtaek
The logo of Samsung Electronics is pictured at the company’s factory in Tijuana, Mexico, June 1, 2019. It plans to invest billions in a Texas factory
President Yoon Suk-yeol will join Biden at the Samsung factory tour
He was convicted bribery and embezzlement and sentenced to 30 months in jail but released early
The White House would not immediately confirm to DailyMail.com that the Samsung executive would be there.
Biden is carving out time to meet industry titans on his trip. On Sunday, he is set to meet the CEO of Hyundai and thank him for a planned investment in Georgia, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp – who is facing a Republican primary election against Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue – will announce on Friday that Hyundai is investing more than $7 billion there. The announcement coincides with Biden’s trip.
Hosting Biden would be Lee’s highest-profile public appearance since the Samsung executive was released on parole in August last year from a bribery conviction.
Lee’s absence from court is a rare occurrence. For over a year, he has attended all hearings of a separate trial related to the $8 billion merger of two Samsung firms in 2015, court records showed.
In 2020, prosecutors accused Lee of stock-price manipulation and accounting fraud related to the merger. Lee has denied the accusations.
Since Lee was freed on parole, Samsung has made major moves such as choosing Taylor, Texas as the U.S. location of its new $17 billion chip plant, merging its mobile and consumer electronics divisions and naming new co-chief executives in its biggest reshuffle since 2017.
Whatever North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un’s plans, Biden plans to keep the focus on the alliance between the two large economies, and his own ambitions to confront inflation by taking on supply chain issues.
It is certain that Russia’s war on Ukraine will come up, as Biden tries to keep allies unified in aiding Ukraine and trying to confront Russia through punitive sanctions.
Biden plans to sign the $40 billion Ukraine aid package, which passed the Senate shortly after he took off for his trip.
The trip is Biden’s first visit to Asia as commander-in-chief on Thursday amid escalating tensions in the region chiefly driven by China and North Korea.
There are other domestic issues at play. He’s leaving just days before the pandemic-era expulsion policy known as Title 42 is set to expire. The Department of Homeland Security is preparing for scenarios where agents at the southwestern border are reckoning with as many as 18,000 migrants per day.
Meanwhile mothers and families nationwide are struggling with a baby formula shortage, as Democrats in Congress call on Biden to appoint a coordinator to deal with the crisis.
The president did not answer shouted questions from reporters on Thursday but smiled and waved in a show of confidence before his five-day trip.
Meanwhile, Biden is looking to reaffirm his administration’s commitment to allies and partners in the region who fear China’s increased aggression against Taiwan and in the South China Sea.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said Wednesday that Biden ‘will not visit the DMZ’ while in South Korea, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, which separates North and South Korea.
Biden visited the DMZ as vice president in 2013.
President Joe Biden left early Thursday afternoon for his first visit to Asia as commander-in-chief
He’ll visit South Korea and Japan in a five day-long visit until next Tuesday
Biden did not stop to answer reporters’ shouted questions but waved before boarding his plane
He’s leaving the United States just days before the pandemic-era Title 42 policy is lifted
More recently, former President Donald Trump went to the DMZ in June of 2019 and crossed into North Korea, meeting leader Kim Jong Un, a year after they first held talks in Singapore.
In February 2019, Trump walked away from denuclearization talks with Kim at a second summit in Vietnam.
Since Trump’s trio of Kim meetings, U.S. denuclearization talks with North Korea have stalled.
North Korea hasn’t tested a nuclear bomb since 2017, but resumed testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles earlier this year.
Earlier this month, North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast, South Korea and Japan said.
North Korea, however, is reportedly suffering from a COVID-19 outbreak for the first time.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan (left) said Wednesday there’s a ‘genuine possibility’ that North Korea could conduct a nuclear or missile test while President Joe Biden is in the region, while press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (right) said Biden wouldn’t visit the DMZ
As of last week, then White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated a trip to the DMZ for Biden was still on the table.
Sullivan said as part of Biden’s first Asia trip, which kicks off Thursday, he would observe American and Korean troops.
‘On this trip, he’ll have the opportunity to reaffirm and reinforce two vital security alliances, to deepen two vibrant economic partnerships, to work with two fellow democracies to shape the rules of the road for the 21st century, and to thank his allies in Korea and Japan for their remarkable and in some ways unexpected contributions to the effort to support Ukraine and to hold Russia accountable,’ Sullivan said.
Biden’s first stop in Asia is to South Korea where he’ll meet with the country’s new leader, President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was inaugurated earlier this month.
Yoon won election, in part, because he said he’d take a tougher stance against North Korea.
The country’s previous president, Moon Jae-in, tried to promote a peaceful reconciliation between the two Koreas.
President Joe Biden (left), serving as vice president, visited the DMZ in 2013. He looked into North Korea with binoculars alongside granddaughter Finnegan Biden (right)
Yoon pledged that he would not ease sanctions on his northern neighbor until Kim made ‘active efforts in complete and verifiable denuclearization.’
In his inaugural address earlier this month, Yoon pushed an ‘audacious plan’ to boost North Korea’s economy in exchange for denuclearization.
Yoon is a first-time politician, spending his career as a prosecutor, which included leading high-profile probes into his predecessor Moon’s aides.
He beat liberal Lee Jae-myung in the country’s March election by narrow margins.
Beyond his bilateral meeting with Yoon, Biden will meet with technology and manufacturing leaders in Korea who are investing in the U.S. and producing American jobs.
Biden will then travel to Japan to meet with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who’s been in that position since October.
The two leaders previously met on the sidelines of the G7 in March.
Former President Donald Trump (right) visited the DMZ in June of 2019 and was the first American leader to meet with a North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un (left), in the space between North and South Korea
‘We believe that the U.S.-Japan alliance at this moment under these two leaders is at an all-time high. This visit can take us even higher,’ Sullivan said.
Biden’s overtures to South Korea and Japan, two Asian democracies, are to provide a counter-balance to rising China, which has gotten cozier with North Korea since nuclear talks ended with the last U.S. administration in 2019.
After taking office last year, Biden’s first world leader at the White House was Kishida’s predecessor, Yoshihide Suga, with South Korea’s President Moon visiting a month later.
While in Tokyo, Biden will also participate in his second in-person meeting of the Quad, which includes the United States, Japan, India and Australia, another strategic alliance meant to keep China in check.
This will be the first time Kishida will participate, alongside Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Australia’s May 21 general election is complicating participation in the Quad meeting, as it will be held just three days before the Tokyo gathering is scheduled.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison wouldn’t say on Wednesday who would represent Australia at the summit.
‘I believe that the Quad meeting will go ahead, I don’t have any more specifics than that,’ Jean-Pierre said at Wednesday’s briefing when asked about Australia’s participation.
Morrison is being challenged by Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese.
Also in Tokyo, the White House said Biden will release an ‘ambitious economic initiative for the region.’
First Lady Jill Biden beat her husband to Asia, traveling to Tokyo in July to appear at the summer Olympics.
