Malaysians dependent on mainstream media for their information are out of sync with the rest of the world – believing Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House was a “resounding success” when US and world media regard it as a disaster for both countries.

Najib has given a new meaning to foreign trips by our Prime Minister and Ministers as until Najib’s US visit, one criteria to judge the success of such a foreign visit is to consider the amount of foreign investments it had been able to attract for Malaysia, but there was not only none in Najib’s White House visit, the Prime Minister visited the White House bearing gifts like a supplicant visiting a reigning potentate!

Any self-respecting Malaysian who read the transcript of the remarks made by Trump and Najib at the White House Cabinet Room on Tuesday would squirm at the tone and tenor of the exchange, for it was not between two equals representing two sovereign nations but like those between a monarch and a minor chieftain of one his far-flung territories! Read the rest of this entry »

By Jonathan O’Connell
Washington Post
September 12, 2017

Before arriving at the White House late Tuesday morning to meet with President Trump, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak strode through the golden doors of an elevator at the Trump International Hotel and past the lounge to his waiting motorcade.

The prime minister’s official White House visit also brought at least 24 hours of activity and sales to the glamorous 263-room hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue that Trump owns through a trust. And it is likely to escalate debate over whether the president is benefiting from a luxury property that has become Washington’s new power center — and, its critics say, a staging area for those seeking White House access.

Hotel staffers and Malaysian officials declined to say whether Najib and the other officials stayed overnight at the hotel, among the most expensive in Washington, or if they did stay, for how long.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders dismissed a question about the delegation’s stay. “We certainly don’t book their hotel accommodations,” she told reporters Tuesday.

But signs of the Malaysia delegation’s presence were obvious at the property. At lunchtime Monday, more than a dozen members of Najib’s entourage relaxed in a lounge area reserved for hotel guests. That evening, they came and went from the hotel, sometimes returning to the valet stand with shopping bags.

Najib departed just before 8 p.m. Monday in his motorcade. He had a scheduled dinner with a business group. He returned to the hotel and rode up the escalator at nearly 10:30 p.m.

On Tuesday morning, dozens of delegation members convened in meeting rooms with name cards bearing the Malaysian coat of arms. Some attended a white-tablecloth breakfast in the hotel’s Lincoln Library meeting room.

Events of this scale would probably mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue for the Trump Organization, based on confirmed spending totals of other groups that have set up camp there. The company declined to comment. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael C. Bender
Wall Street Journal
Sept. 12, 2017

President Trump and Prime Minister Najib don’t mention U.S. probe of Malaysia’s investment fund

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump touted what he described as a plan by Malaysia Airlines Bhd. to spend between $10 billion and $20 billion on Boeing Co. jets and General Electric Co. engines as he opened a White House meeting with Malaysia’s prime minister.

Mr. Trump, in a public appearance with Prime Minister Najib Razak, cited the airline deal as a basis for strong ties between the two countries. Boeing said the deal involved 16 new planes. He also identified Malaysia as a strategic national-security ally in Asia, while playing down the significance of a fresh round of sanctions the United Nations Security Council approved against North Korea on Monday.

Mr. Trump also praised Malaysia as a significant investor in U.S. securities, saying American markets have been hitting records “on almost a weekly basis” during his presidency. “I congratulate you on those investments,” Mr. Trump said during a brief public appearance with the Malaysian leader.

The airline deal puts the administration in the unusual position of coaxing investment from a trade partner that the U.S. is also investigating for investment fraud.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the alleged looting of 1Malaysia Development Bhd., a Malaysian economic-development fund. The probe threatens to ensnare much of the country’s ruling elite, including Mr. Najib. Read the rest of this entry »