South Korea says US will lower tariffs, agreement reached on trade
President Donald Trump is presented with the Grand Order of Mugunghwa and the Silla gold crown by South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the Gyeongju National Museum, October 29, 2025 in Gyeongju, South Korea. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(GYEONGIU, South Korea) – South Korea announced on Wednesday that it has reached an agreement on details of the trade deal with the U.S., following a bilateral meeting between President Donald Trump and President Lee Jae Myung, as well as months of negotiations.
President Lee’s chief of staff said the tariffs the U.S. imposes on automobile exports will be lowered to 15% from 25%. The framework deal from July lowered the reciprocal rate to 15% and that will be maintained.
Back in July, South Korea pledged to invest $350 billion into the U.S. Lee’s chief of staff said a $200 billion investment will be made in installments of up to $20 billion cash payments each year. Another $150 billion will be invested in the U.S. shipbuilding industry.
This now puts the auto tariffs South Korea will pay in line with those on Japan.
The White House has not responded to request for comment about the tariffs, but released a fact-sheet with more details of the trade deal.
It includes a commitment from Korean Air to purchase 103 new Boeing aircraft for $36.2 billion, a move that is expected to support up to 135,000 jobs in the U.S. The Republican of Korea Air Force will invest $2.3 billion to develop its aircraft with an American technology company.
Plus, the White House said it has secured key investments that solidify the United States as a global energy leader, including South Korean purchases of American liquid natural gas and a $3 billion investment in U.S. power-grid infrastructure.
Earlier on Wednesday, the South Korean president greeted Trump with flattery and gifts, including a replica of the ancient gold crown from the Silla dynasty. Their meeting was held in Gyeongju, South Korea, which was the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom.
Trump was also awarded with the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, South Korea’s highest honor. Trump is the first U.S. president to receive the honor.
Jason C. Andrew/Politico/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated their feud over the weekend after the Georgia Republican slammed the president and the administration over a number of topics, including the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
Trump went so far as to withdraw his support for Greene and said he would support a primary challenger.
“Lightweight Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Brown (Green grass turns Brown when it begins to ROT!), betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left,” Trump said in a social media post Saturday morning as part of an online back and forth with Greene.
Greene said Saturday in an X post that she had received death threats.
“As a Republican, who overwhelmingly votes for President Trump‘s bills and agenda, his aggression against me which also fuels the venomous nature of his radical internet trolls (many of whom are paid), this is completely shocking to everyone,” she said.
The conflict began this week after Greene questioned in an NBC News interview if Trump was focused on domestic affairs.
“No one cares about the foreign countries. No one cares about the never-ending amount of foreign leaders coming to the White House every single week,” she said in the interview.
On Friday, Trump responded to her words, telling reporters aboard Air Force One, “she is a very different figure,” and that he was no longer “a fan.”
“Something happened to her over the last period of a month or two where she changed. I think politically, I think that her constituents aren’t going to be happy,” he said. “But when she says, ‘Don’t go overseas.’ If I didn’t go overseas, we might be in a war right now with China.”
Trump added he would consider backing a primary challenger and in a social media post later in the night withdrew his endorsement of the congresswoman.
He wrote, “all I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN.”
“I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support,” the president added.
Greene pushed back against Trump Friday night in an X post, contending that the president was upset with her after she texted him about the ongoing Epstein investigation.
“And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files,” she said. “It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level.”
“I never thought that fighting to release the Epstein files, defending women who were victims of rape, and fighting to expose the web of rich powerful elites would have caused this, but here we are,” Greene said in an X post Saturday morning “And it truly speaks for itself.”
The president, who spent Saturday morning golfing in Florida, slammed Greene in a social media post arguing she, “became the RINO that we all know she always was. Just another Fake politician.”
(NEW YORK) — On the campaign trail, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance promised their supporters that they would release the Justice Department files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein if elected.
Since then, however, the administration has been reluctant to divulge more details about the investigation or release all of the files, angering some Republicans and Democrats and raising questions about Trump’s past connections to Epstein.
Here is a timeline of the major events surrounding the Epstein files saga since Trump returned to office.
Feb. 21, 2025 In an interview with Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked about the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients and if the Justice Department was planning to release them.
Bondi responded, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”
The attorney general clarified in July that she was referring to the Epstein case files, and not an alleged client list.
Feb. 27, 2025 The Justice Department invites conservative bloggers and influencers and shares with them binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” Most of the evidence had already been released to the public.
Bondi and her team did not inform White House officials in advance that she planned to distribute the binders, sources with information about the event told ABC News.
May 8, 2025 The House’s Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets demanded the release of the Epstein files in a letter to Bondi.
Bondi did not respond to the request before the May 16 deadline.
July 7, 2025 The DOJ and FBI released a joint statement that stated a review of its holdings uncovered no evidence of any client list kept by Epstein or other evidence that would predicate a criminal investigation of any uncharged parties.
The department also released hours of purported footage as part of its review, which officials say further confirmed Epstein died by suicide while in custody in his jail cell in Manhattan in 2019.
The video from the Bureau of Prisons showing the moments before Epstein’s death was later determined to have been missing footage. Several conservative influencers slam Bondi and the Justice Department over the memo.
July 12, 2025 Trump defended Bondi in a social media post amid the pushback from some in his MAGA base over the handling of the Epstein probe.
Trump praised Bondi for doing a “fantastic job” and urged his “boys” and “gals” to stop criticizing her.
July 15, 2025 Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna seek a House vote for a discharge petition to release the Epstein files.
The same day, House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Bondi to “come forward and explain” her handling of the probe.
Signatures for the petition continue to grow, however, do not reach the 218 needed to move forward.
Asked what Bondi told him about the review of the Epstein files and if his name appeared at all, Trump responded, “No, no, she’s given us just a very quick briefing,” before making baseless claims that the files were created by some of his political foes.
“Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release,” Trump said.
July 24-25, 2025 Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal attorney, interviewed Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on sex trafficking and other charges related to Epstein’s illicit activities.
Maxwell initiated the meeting, multiple sources told ABC News.
A month later, the Justice Department released a transcript of the interview, which was not under oath, where she claimed there was no client list.
Aug. 1, 2025 Maxwell was transferred from a federal prison in Florida, which is labeled “low security” to a federal prison camp in Texas, which is labeled “minimum security,” the Justice Department announced.
Sept. 8, 2025 Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a 238-page PDF document of the 50th birthday book to Epstein that includes a prologue by Maxwell and a page allegedly written by Trump.
Trump’s page features a typed letter written inside a doodle of a woman’s body, with his signature located in a provocative spot on the body.
The president denied that he wrote and signed the letter.
Nov. 12, 2025 Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released emails that were part of more than 20,000 from the Epstein estate.
Some of the messages show Epstein talking about Trump, including one where he claimed Trump “spent hours at my house” with one of the sex-trafficked victims.
The White House accused Democrats on the House Oversight Committee of releasing “selectively leaked emails to the liberal media to create a fake narrative” about Trump.
Later that evening, Arizona Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into office, a month after she won a special election, and became the final signature on the discharge petition to get it over the 218 threshold.
Johnson announced that he would bring a bill to release the Jeffrey Epstein files to a vote on the floor next week.
(WASHINGTON) — President Trump met on Monday at the White House with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the White House said.
The visit marked the first time a Syrian president has ever visited the White House and is viewed as a crucial first step in normalizing U.S.-Syria relations.
The White House did not allow reporters and cameras access to the meeting.
Al-Sharaa is the former leader of U.S.-designated terror group al-Qaeda who was once wanted by the U.S. as a terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head. He has even served time in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
A senior Trump administration official said Trump and al-Sharaa were expected to focus on counterterrorism efforts in Syria, and to discuss the signing of an agreement for Syria to join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. The coalition includes some 80 countries working to prevent a resurgence of the extremist group, according to the official.
It’s also the third meeting between Trump and al-Sharaa this year, as the Syrian leader confronts the challenges of rebuilding the country, seeking to restore ties with Arab countries and the West after years of civil war under Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The Assad regime’s fall brought to an end nearly 14 years of civil war.
Al-Sharaa arrived in Washington on Saturday and held meetings with members of Congress over the weekend, including with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, a Republican who represents a district in Florida.
Mast shared in a statement that he and al-Sharaa “broke bread” and had a “long and serious conversation about how to build a future for the people of Syria free of war, ISIS, and extremism.”
“He and I are two former soldiers and two former enemies. I asked him directly ‘Why we are no longer enemies?’” Mast revealed.
“His response was that he wishes to ‘liberate from the past and have a noble pursuit for his people and his country and to be a great ally to the United States of America,'” Mast shared in the statement.
The U.S. on Friday removed sanctions on al-Sharaa just one day after the United Nations Security Council lifted similar sanctions ahead of his meeting with Trump.
According to a notice on the U.S. Treasury Department website, the United States removed Specially Designated Global Terrorist designations on Sharaa and Syria’s interior minister, Anas Khattab.
