WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Melania Trump rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday to promote her new initiative to help women become leaders and achieve economic power. <\/p>\n
It’s called Imperia, and its members include CEOs, founders, innovators, entrepreneurs and others. <\/p>\n
A lot of the first lady’s attention has been on children, but, with Imperia, she is leaning on her business skills to encourage women to harness their economic power and help others understand women’s role in a global economy. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor generations, women fought for a seat at the table,\u201d she told a meeting of the group. \u201cThe next chapter is about owning, growing and making space for the women who come next.”<\/p>\n
She said that means owning businesses, equity, real estate, capital and investment assets, along with \u201cour ideas, our intellectual property and our economic future.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople still do not fully understand the full scale of women’s power in the global economy,\u201d she continued. \u201cWomen are not just part of the marketplace, simple participants. We are its foundation, and we are its infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a rare television interview earlier Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s \u201cFox & Friends\u201d to promote Imperia, the first lady addressed several other subjects, including this week’s state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, her efforts to reunite children separated from their families by Russia’s war against Ukraine, her new docuseries and the extent of her public engagements.<\/p>\n
Some recent news reports have said the first lady is appearing in public less often than during President Donald Trump’s first term. <\/p>\n
Melania Trump said the difference is that she is more focused on getting results.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t see me everywhere, but behind the scenes I\u2019m working nonstop,\u201d she said, citing as an example the preparations for her events in New York this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and for Xi\u2019s visit. \u201cI\u2019m working on so many projects … in the future. So stay tuned.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was deeply involved in the planning for Xi’s visit in her role as first lady. She said her husband decided to personally greet China’s leader after his plane lands because of their \u201cgreat relationship.\u201d President Trump typically greets leaders at the White House.<\/p>\n
As of July, Melania Trump had helped reunite five groups of Ukrainian and Russian children with their families, work that underscores the more global approach she has taken during the Republican president’s second term. She said that she has a \u201cdirect channel\u201d with leaders from the warring countries and that her team is working on another reunification. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is ongoing, and we want to reunite as many children as possible,\u201d the first lady said. \u201cAnd that’s my focus as well. What they\u2019re going through, it\u2019s heartbreaking. And it\u2019s nothing better to see than a child reunite with the parents, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
The first lady also rang the opening bell at the NYSE in January before the release of her Amazon documentary, \u201cMelania,\u201d about her life in the weeks leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration for a second term in office. A new two-part docuseries featuring her will be released in the fall. She said it will be different from the documentary and teased that it will include some surprises.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more conversation, one on one with me,\u201d the first lady said. \u201cSo when I was traveling and doing all of the filming, the director was asking me questions, and there are some private questions that I will answer that people never heard before. So it\u2019s kind of exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Follow the AP’s coverage of first lady Melania Trump at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/melania-trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Melania Trump rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25536,18923,18924,24016,118,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-354781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-ap-business","tag-ap-politics","tag-ap-u-s-news","tag-ap-washington-news","tag-associated-press","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}