There is no official date for the first in-person meeting between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the United States President Donald Trump, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel “Babe” Romualdez said Sunday.
Romualdez said he is set to travel to Washington D.C. for a meeting to discuss a first face-to-face bilateral meeting between the two leaders in the White House.
“I’m just about to leave for Washington, D.C., and I have a meeting there in Washington, precisely one of our meetings is precisely to discuss when a possible meeting between President Trump and President Marcos could take place,” he said in a radio interview.
Romualdez said he is currently in Los Angeles, California to attend the Manila International Film Festival with First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos.
According to the ambassador, who is also a second cousin of the President, he is hoping the first meeting would be in the second quarter of the year.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo previously said that the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C., headed by Romualdez, is primarily in charge of the scheduling of the meeting between Marcos and Trump.
In January, Marcos expressed his desire to meet with Trump, who at that time 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 about his 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 mixed 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 of them 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 have been deported have 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.