HONOLULU: US President Donald Trump paid a somber visit to Pearl Harbor ahead of his first official trip to Asia, also meeting with military officials overseeing US operations in the Pacific region. Before his some 20-minute visit to the shrine, Trump met with leaders of the US Pacific Command, amid growing concerns over security in the region. In brief comments to reporters, Trump said it was “very special being in Hawaii.”He voiced enthusiasm over his trip to Pearl Harbor, “which I’ve read about, spoken about, heard about, studied, but I haven’t seen. He left Washington with heavy domestic baggage—including new developments in the high-stakes probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election—that risks dogging efforts at top-level diplomacy. The trip itself poses its own set of challenges, with efforts to contain or roll back North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear missile programs topping the diplomatic agenda.

Source: Manila Times November 04, 2017 13:30 UTC