The new president of South Korea praised President Donald Trump Monday for his leadership, his peacemaking skills and all the gold that Trump has collected for the Oval Office.
President Lee Jae Myung claimed the golden hue symbolizes the new future of the country, which is becoming great again, and that the great Trump should unify Korea and build a Trump Tower in North Korea and play golf there, etc., etc., etc.
(The Washington Post reported that Lee said in June he would “crawl between his (Trump’s) legs if necessary, if that’s what I have to do for my people.”)
The South Korean leader stopped just short of crawling.
After taking it all in, Trump rambled and ranted at length, mixing lies about renewable energy and forgetting that a proposed Alaska project would export natural gas, not oil.
“We love what they do,” Trump said of South Korea.
“We love their product. We love their ships. We love a lot of the things that they make. And they love what we have. We’re dealing with them on Alaska, having to do with the oil.”
“They need. You need oil and we have it,” said Trump, looking at the South Korean reporter who asked him about his alleged trade deal with South Korea.
“So we have a big advantage in that way. We have a big, we have more oil and gas and coal and energy than any other country in the world by far.”
“For whatever reason, God was very good to us. He gave us the greatest. We didn’t use it. We started to use wind. Wind doesn’t work. They started to use solar panels that took over the land, all over the Midwest, with the farmers said ‘What happened to my land?’”
“They’d have a 10-mile by 10-mile solar field that they couldn’t farm, the most, the most valuable land, farming land in the world, probably the most vibrant in the world. And they put solar plants all over the place, it’s ridiculous. Big massive black fields of solar that all comes out of China, all plastic, all comes out of China. But we have uh, we have the greatest amount of energy in the world.”
“And we’re dealing with South Korea, as you know, and Alaska. And we’re going to be making a deal, a joint venture with South Korea. Japan is involved also. Very strongly involved. So we have Japan and South Korea. And we’re actually the closest. You know it seems like quite far away. Alaska and Ko—. But actually it’s right up, right up the little ocean, right up the little Pacific Ocean. It’s actually pretty close, relatively speaking. But we have more oil and gas and coal than any other nation in the world by far. And we’re gonna use it. And that’s the thing that South Korea, I think most wants from us. I would think.”
The big thing to know is that despite the endless talk of a joint venture from Trump, there is no evidence that it is true. No one in Japan or South Korea has confirmed the claim.
Trump first announced a joint venture with Japan in February.
Sen. Dan Sullivan heralded the news as real: “PRESIDENT TRUMP ANNOUNCES ‘JOINT VENTURE’ ON ALASKA LNG PROJECT WITH JAPAN.”
“We’re talking about a joint venture of some type, between Japan and us, having to do with Alaska oil and gas. And that’s very exciting. They’re very excited about it. So are we,” Trump said in February.
In March, Trump said in the State of the Nation speech that Japan, Korea and other nations want to “be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each” for an Alaska natural gas pipeline.
“It will be truly spectacular. It’s all set to go. The permitting is gotten (sic),” Trump said.
“President Trump’s support for AKLNG will ensure this massive LNG project is completed, and clean Alaska gas supplies our Asian allies and our Alaskan residents for decades to come!” Gov. Mike Dunleavy claimed.
Sullivan said, “the stars are aligned like never before for the @AlaskaLNG project—a decades-long energy dream for Alaska.”
In April, Trump claimed he had met with the acting leader of South Korea and talked about many things, including “their joint venture in an Alaska Pipeline.”
In July, Trump claimed at the White House that Japan is “forming a joint venture with us at, in Alaska, as you know for the LNG.”
“They’re all set to make that deal now so I think it’s good.”
“We’re gonna make a deal with Japan on the LNG in Alaska,” Trump claimed.
The best coverage of the Alaska LNG project recently is from the Financial Times, which reported in August on the inability to get skeptical Asian nations and companies to invest billions.
“Ryosuke Tsugaru, chief low-carbon fuel officer at JERA, the world’s largest natural gas buyer, said Japanese officials had asked the energy group to consider the Alaska LNG project in a ‘fair, reasonable manner’ because they wanted to give ‘some sugars’ to Trump,” the Financial Times reported August 4.
The newspaper quoted an unnamed South Korean official as questioning the cost of the Alaska project, the question that never goes away.
“Seoul agreed to make $100bn of U.S. energy purchases over the next four years as part of a trade deal with the Trump administration, but later clarified that it had not made any commitments to Alaska LNG,” the newspaper said.
“The U.S. is not providing the information we need about the costs,” the unnamed official told the Times, adding that South Korean gas buyers would “absolutely not” have considered investing in the project were it not for U.S. pressure.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
