WASHINGTON – It’s a critical week for President Donald Trump as he prepares for Tuesday’s highly anticipated State of the Union address.
His week kicks off with the United Nations and shoring up international support against Iran.
On Monday, Trump will meet with U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and U.N. Security Council diplomats at the White House.
Haley arranged the visit to highlight Iran’s role in conflicts around the Middle East. The visit is also expected to include an inspection of debris from a ballistic missile fired from Yemen into Saudi Arabia and a tour of the Holocaust Museum.
Meanwhile, Trump’s first State of the Union address is slated for Tuesday night when he’s expected to talk about five main areas: immigration, infrastructure, trade, national security, and particularly the economy.
He’ll also no doubt tout how the effects his tax cuts and deregulation have helped bring America a booming economy, like he did at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday.
“We worked on it hard, covered a lot of territory, including our great success with the markets and with the tax cut,” Trump told reporters Monday. “And it’s a big speech, an important speech.”
“But it’s going to be I think a very important speech on trade, he continued. “The world has taken advantage of us on trade for many years, and as you probably noticed we’re stopping that, and we’re stopping it cold and we have to. We have to have reciprocal trade. It’s not a one-way deal anymore. So we have a lot of things to discuss and we’ll be discussing them, and I hope you enjoy it.”
He may also expand on his plan for “Dreamers,” the nearly 2 million illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
“The president’s proposal of allowing 1.8 million ‘Dreamers’ a pathway forward with citizenship is a huge step in the right direction,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told ABC News on Sunday.
Trump’s immigration reform plan is drawing support and criticism from both sides of the aisle, but with some Democrats willing to negotiate, talks of a deal may soon begin.
“For many years, for many, many years they’ve been talking immigration; they never got anything done. We’re going to get something done, we hope,” Trump said. “It’s got to be bipartisan because the Republicans really don’t have the votes to get it done in any other way, so it has to be bipartisan. But hopefully the Democrats will join us, or enough of them will join us, so we can really do something great, for DACA and for immigration generally.”