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President Donald Trump met on Tuesday with Sanae Takaichi, leader of America’s closest Asian ally, days before a high-stakes trip to Washington by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with the session slated to feature Japan’s ties with its giant neighbor.
“We’ll certainly talk about it,” Trump said Tuesday ahead of the meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, referring to China-Japan relations.
Takaichi had moved up her plan to speak at the UN by two days in order to catch Trump before his high-stakes summit with Xi on Thursday.
Japan has sought support from the US after China restricted supplies of rare earth minerals to Tokyo late last year. That was done in retaliation for remarks Takaichi made about Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims sovereignty over.
In November, she said any Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be an existential threat to Japan, implying that Tokyo might support a collective defense of the island. China has also blacklisted many Japanese companies in response.
China has waged a campaign to isolate Takaichi, a national security hawk, and portray her as a warmonger in response to her comments.
Takaichi was previously scheduled to give her maiden speech at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, but will instead be one of the last speakers later on Tuesday.
Trump and Takaichi showered praise on each other in front of the cameras ahead of their closed-door meeting, with the US president calling her a “friend of mine” who’s “going to go down as one of the great prime ministers.”
Takaichi, speaking in Japanese, thanked Trump for his commitment to the Japan-US alliance.
“Against the backdrop of an increasingly severe security environment — including the Asian security environment in recent years — I would like to seize this opportunity to demonstrate to the world how robust our alliance is,” she said.
Analysts will be on watch to see whether readouts of the meeting show that Takaichi sought an update on Trump’s pause on weapons sales to Taiwan — a major point of contention between the US and China.
Another key point is whether she provided Trump with more detail on Japan’s military buildup in response to rising regional threats. Trump has urged Japan to move faster to ease the burden on the US military in the Asia Pacific region.
Tokyo is currently considering raising defense spending to 3.5% of gross domestic product, joining NATO and South Korea in setting that as a target to respond to American pressure.
Among the potential subjects for the meeting were any updates on Japan’s $550 billion investment pledge in the US, made in return for a reduction in Trump’s trade tariffs. The recent joint US-Japan intervention in the currency market to support the Japanese yen might also have been a discussion point.
Japan’s flailing currency has heightened concerns about rising US interest rates, with Japanese Finance Ministry data suggesting Japan likely sold some of its large holdings of Treasury securities this year to fund yen buying.
In Japan, there was also a focus ahead of the meeting on whether Takaichi would raise the recent US move to sanction the Japanese head of the International Criminal Court, Tomoko Akane. The prime minister has faced criticism within her own ruling party for not condemning the action.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
