SEOUL — For the better part of an hour, the governor’s delegation and Japanese business leaders had pitched Maryland to a room full of investors, entrepreneurs and executives in a Tokyo highrise without the president coming up.

Then the questions started.

Dr. Kazuhiro Matsuda, president of a biotech startup that may be interested in coming to Maryland as it develops a pneumonia vaccine for children, said he was worried about business prospects now that a vaccine skeptic was in charge of the Food and Drug Administration.

Misato Wheeler, owner of a small matcha import business, is thinking about moving to Maryland with her husband and their two children. They’re citizens, she isn’t. Would the president’s tariffs make importing more difficult? Would she have trouble getting a visa as immigration controls get tighter?

Fresh off a frustrating legislative session, Gov. Wes Moore went on his weeklong trip to Japan and South Korea with the hopes of injecting life into a stagnant state economy. But Donald Trump, whether Moore is in Annapolis or Seoul, is an inescapable force.

Seen by some as a 2028 presidential contender, Moore’s approach toward Trump has swung from saying “I’m not the leader of the resistance” on CNN in January to calling the president “reckless” and warning Trump’s administration threatens “our rights, freedoms and futures” in a series of social media posts on Tuesday.

The governor’s international sales pitch for Maryland was his clearest repudiation of the White House’s current occupant.

At a time when conservatives are vilifying diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, Moore’s team pointed to Maryland‘s status as the most diverse state on the East Coast as a selling point. When elite institutions are under siege by the Trump administration, Moore celebrated their value as a resource for business and innovation.

In his meeting with South Korea’s Acting President Han Duck-soo, Moore said they discussed the United States’ “obligation” to protect stability and democratic values in the region. Moore and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan’s second-highest ranking official, talked about how Trump levying tariffs was akin to using “weapons against friends.”

A U.S. leader promoting democracy and free trade is not novel. Both have been staples of American foreign policy in the region since the end of World War II. The Trump administration is shying away from these principles, instead sowing uncertainty, hesitancy and distrust across the globe, Jordan Tama, a provost associate professor at American University’s School of International Service, said.

“It’s important to be giving other countries an understanding that there’s a possibility for U.S. foreign policy to shift back toward a more internationalist approach to the world,” Tama said.

While U.S. governors have little influence on foreign affairs, especially those who oppose Trump, there is utility in going abroad to promote what had been the status quo.

“One of the points Democratic governors or others can make when speaking to foreign audiences is that the American public is not united behind Trump,” Tama said.

Moore’s visit was noted by the press in Japan and South Korea, with media in both countries eager to see how the Democrat viewed Trump’s trade policy. Trump was constantly featured in news broadcasts in both countries. One Korean headline read: “‘I believe in fair trade‘: Maryland Gov. Wes Moore says Trump’s tariffs bad for ties with Korea.”

Reluctant to even name Trump during press availabilities or in public remarks during his trip, Moore instead said he was focused on being present and “showing up.” He was received everywhere with open arms. A red carpet welcome from the governor of Maryland‘s sister province in South Korea; a personal tour of a fighter jet factory there; the cheery, formal reception in the Japanese Prime Minister’s Office under the many watchful eyes of Myaku-Myaku; and lots of sports talk.

Still, he acknowledged the frustration of trying to make international deals when the economic climate is in flux.

It “makes international trade and international relations just deeply, deeply difficult when, when we don’t have a real level of stability in terms of what direction we’re heading towards,” Moore said of tariff policy one morning in Tokyo.

If not for Trump’s looming presence, Moore’s trip would not have been all that different from those previous Maryland governors have taken.

Former Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, visited Japan and South Korea twice, on his first international trip in 2015 and his last in 2022. Yumi Hogan, the Republican’s Korean-American wife who is still something of a sensation in South Korea, led her own trip to South Korea in 2017. Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley made international travel a regular part of his job.

International trade trips for governors are historically competitive affairs. When President Nixon opened formal relations with China in 1972, about half the states tried to get early permission to visit Beijing. Even since the pandemic, there have been at least 25 gubernatorial visits to Japan, Moore said.

“We’re in a race,” Moore said. “We’re in a competition with these other states, and I don’t plan on losing.”

In events open to the press, Moore projected confidence while preaching collaboration and being effusive in his praise for his foreign hosts.

“We are here because Japan is going to lead the world in this coming decade. You are the center of innovation, exploration, discovery and growth,” Moore told a room full of investors in Tokyo. “Maryland wants to be your partner in that work. Because the only way to win is to win together.”

He left the bulk of the promotion in these seminars to recently-appointed Maryland Commerce Secretary Harry Coker Jr. and Ricardo Benn, Coker’s deputy. While Moore has said he wants Maryland‘s economy to be less reliant on the federal government, medical institutions and universities, all three of those sectors featured prominently in the state’s sales pitch.

State officials touted Maryland‘s proximity to Washington, the number of federal agencies headquartered in the state, the research and innovation being done at the University of Maryland and the top minds and medical breakthroughs at Johns Hopkins. Moore’s quantum computing initiative — he has said he wants to make Maryland the industry’s global capital — is tied closely to the University of Maryland and defense and aerospace sectors.

Japanese and Korean companies doing business in Maryland highlighted their own perceived benefits, which typically mirrored the commerce department’s selling points, though one Korean executive made sure to note the D.C. area’s great golf courses.

These selling points are not state secrets — Google exists globally — and the incentives Maryland can offer businesses to open a facility or relocate are not dissimilar from others.

In a culture that blends business with the personal, it is relationships that ultimately matter, Invest Korea Commissioner Kim Tae-Hyung said.

“In Korea we often say that business is fundamentally personal,” said Kim, whose job is to promote foreign investment in Korea. “You don’t do business with a company, you do business with a person and that really sums it up perfectly. Relationships and trust matter.”

Moore listened intently, smiled and thanked people for their questions or their leadership. He told every room of investors he hopes to see them again someday and accepted business cards from random people in reception lines after.

“I want them to feel comfortable enough that they are making a phone call to me as they’re making these decisions about what they’re going to do,” he said of corporate leaders in Japan and Korea.

Never mind this was his first trade mission as governor, or that the last time he was in South Korea it was with Army buddies for “five days of debauchery.”

“This will be the first time I’ll actually be wearing suits in Korea,” he joked the day he departed Tokyo.

The governor’s background on Wall Street and later as CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation made him uniquely capable of brokering deals and making friends. The ability was on full display in South Korea when he presided over an agreement between two companies that his own commerce department introduced to one another.

In a windowless conference room inside the Grand InterContinental in Seoul, Moore grinned and pumped his fist at a ceremonial deal signing between the leaders of IonQ, the first publicly traded quantum computing company, and Intellian, a South Korean satellite hardware company in the vein of Elon Musk’s StarLink.

Intellian, with an office in Rockville, and the College Park-headquarted IonQ agreed to work together to build ultra-secure quantum networks for military drones.

“We’re going to have you on sales commission,” IonQ Executive Chairman Peter Chapman remarked to Moore afterward.

For the U.S. and its Asian allies, trade and defense are closely linked, something Moore, with two degrees in international relations and a decorated service record, said he understands clearer than others.

He participated in a roundtable discussion on the topic in South Korea and, on his visit to Korea Aerospace Industries’ factory, offered to voice support for the company’s joint bid with Lockheed Martin to supply training jets for the U.S. Navy.

Moore had several other meetings with trade association leaders and executives of giant conglomerates like Hitachi, which plans to build a railcar factory in Western Maryland. Many meetings were private, but Moore said he was “100% confident” foreign corporations he met with would announce new investments in Maryland soon.

Asked what he thought people were taking away from meetings with him, Moore essentially offered another not-so subtle contrast with Trump.

“People are seeing that we’re straight shooters” he said.