U.S. President Donald Trump has stated that the Department of Defense will invest 1.5 billion dollars (approx. 2 trillion won) to produce advanced semiconductors right in North Carolina.

Speaking at a midterm election campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on the 20th (local time), President Trump made the announcement, calling it a "very, very big investment."

He did not provide detailed explanations on when or how the Department of Defense's investment will take place.

However, President Trump's announcement came shortly after Secretary Howard Lutnick took the podium to reveal that Sibelco, a Belgian industrial minerals mining company, plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build a manufacturing facility in North Carolina.

Secretary Lutnick explained, "Today, Sibelco is announcing that they are going to build a silicon manufacturing facility. A quartz manufacturing facility. That is essentially the basis of semiconductors."

In addition, regarding the incident where drinking water was contaminated with carcinogens from 1948 to 2008 at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, harming service members and their families on the base, President Trump said, "I am pleased to announce that our administration has paid out 1 billion dollars in cash compensation to veterans and their families."

The investment and compensation announcements made by President Trump and Secretary Lutnick just two weeks before the midterm elections are interpreted as "region-tailored" policies aimed at securing voter support in an election where the Republican Party faces dim prospects.

The previous day, President Trump also visited Kansas, a representative agricultural region, and stated that the Department of Agriculture would launch an 8 billion dollar (approx. 10.6 trillion won) harvest fuel support program.

This was interpreted as a cash support measure to appease agricultural supporters whose dissatisfaction has grown over diesel prices nearly doubling compared to a year ago.

In the U.S. Senate race, the Republican candidate in Kansas is maintaining a close contest, but in North Carolina, candidate Michael Whatley is trailing significantly behind Democratic candidate Roy Cooper, who served as governor from 2017 to 2025, by around 10 percentage points in various polls.

In response, the Senate Leadership Fund, the largest Republican super PAC supporting Senate races, significantly cut its funding for North Carolina.

However, President Trump appears to have spared no effort in providing direct support by campaigning there despite it not being a battleground, citing his personal ties to Whatley, who served as Republican National Committee chairman during the 2024 presidential election where Trump won.

President Trump chose North Carolina as his first campaign stop right after the Texas midterm convention, visited the state again in about a month, and delivered a lengthy rally speech lasting nearly an hour and fifty minutes on this day.

With little time left until election day, President Trump also focused on attacks, calling Democratic candidate Cooper a "disastrous figure of the radical left who promotes crime."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)