Marcos-Trump talk in pipeline — envoy

The first in-person meeting between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and United States President Donald Trump is being arranged, Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez said Tuesday.

According to Romualdez, the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., is currently coordinating with the White House regarding the topics that Marcos would like to discuss with Trump.

“It’s a matter of just scheduling it now, and it’ll happen fairly soon. It’s just that, as I have said, these things take some kind of preparation,” he said in a television interview.

Romualdez, who is a second cousin of Marcos, emphasized that Marcos is eager to ensure his first-ever meeting with the business mogul-turned-politician would be a productive one.

“President Marcos certainly doesn’t want to come to Washington and just wait until he gets an appointment. We want to make sure that he gets that appointment so that they can have a really meaningful discussion,” he said.

Last month, Marcos expressed his desire to meet with Trump, who at that time had just returned to the White House after his victory in the November US elections.

According to a Presidential Communications Office statement, Marcos is seeking to meet Trump to “influence” the latter’s policymaking, particularly on immigration.

“Some hundreds of Filipinos may have already been sent home. This is something we need to work through and, hopefully, resolve. We’ll see how we can influence policymaking on immigration,” Marcos said in a mix of Filipino and English.

One of Trump’s campaign promises was to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, with a goal of expelling around 1 million undocumented immigrants per year.

Earlier, Romualdez revealed that at least 24 undocumented Filipinos had been deported since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.

He also noted that those who had been deported had criminal records but stressed that “these were not classified as very serious offenses.”

According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, there are an estimated 370,000 undocumented Filipino immigrants in the US.