President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Wednesday a plan for South Korea to invest roughly $54 billion in a project to export natural gas from Alaska — a proposal long backed by Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, who is in a competitive reelection contest there.

This investment would be the second time this week that the Republican president has aimed to spotlight the potential of foreign investment enabled by his administration's trade policy in states where Republican Senate candidates are locked in close races.

On Monday, he made a comparable announcement in the Oval Office regarding a large steel plant in Iowa.

The Alaska investment comes from pledges made as part of a 2025 trade deal with South Korea, which included promises of $350 billion in U.S. investments in exchange for lower U.S. tariffs on South Korean cars, auto parts and other products.

The announcement, initially reported by Bloomberg, was subsequently confirmed by the White House on Wednesday.

Sullivan, a two-term senator who has consistently championed the Alaska natural gas project and encouraged South Korean investment, now faces a competitive challenge from Democrat Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman.

The White House said the project comprises an 807-mile (1,300-kilometer) natural gas pipeline linking Alaska's North Slope to a liquefied natural gas export terminal in southern Alaska, and that it will ultimately reduce energy costs for the state's residents by providing a reliable and secure supply.

On Monday, Trump unveiled plans for a $15 billion steel plant to be constructed in Iowa by a Minnesota-based company owned by an Indian industrial conglomerate.

In Iowa, Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson finds herself locked in a closely contested U.S. Senate race against Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek, vying for the seat that retiring two-term Republican Joni Ernst is vacating.

Hinson delivered remarks in the Oval Office during the announcement.

Alaska and Iowa, where Trump won comfortably each time he has run for president, are among the states where Democrats are targeting Republican-held Senate seats in the 2026 midterm elections, less than five weeks away.

For Democrats to wrest the majority from the Republicans, they must secure a net gain of four seats in the 100-member Senate.

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Trump’s announcements come as voters express concern about near-record fuel prices tied to the unresolved war with Iran, and as the Republican majority in Congress faces an electorate unhappy with Trump’s handling of the economy.

According to a late-July poll conducted by the Reporters-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, merely about one-third of Americans approved of Trump's handling of the economy, while approximately seven in ten characterized it as poor.