WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) President Donald Trump is playing host to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week amid growing strain between the countries over the presidents planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and the push for new tariffs.
The visit gives the leaders an opportunity to discuss Trumps upcoming summit with North Korea, which Japan eyes warily. It will also serve as a test of whether the fond personal relationship the two leaders have forged on the golf course and over meetings and phone calls has chilled following Trumps recent moves, including failure to exempt Japan from new steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump welcomed the two days of meetings. I am in Florida and looking forward to my meeting with Prime Minister Abe of Japan. Working on Trade and Military Security, he tweeted today.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House expects the summit to be very positive.
Obviously, the president has got a great relationship there, and its going to be centered primarily on preparation for talks with North Korea as well as a lot of trade discussion is expected to come up, she said.
The official visit begins this afternoon with a one-on-one meeting followed by a small group discussion with top national security officials focused on the Kim summit. The president and first lady Melania Trump will also have dinner with Abe and his wife.
On Wednesday, the agenda will broaden to include other issues affecting the Indo-Pacific region, including trade and energy. Trump and Abe will also hold a news conference before the president and first lady host the Japanese delegations for dinner. Abe will return to Japan on Thursday morning.
Golf is not on the official schedule, but senior administration officials didnt rule it out completely. Trump and Abe played together during Abes trip to Florida a year ago and during Trumps maiden trip to Japan late last year.
When Trump hosted Abe at his private Mara-Lago club in West Palm Beach, Florida, shortly after the inauguration, North Korea conducted its first missile test of Trumps administration, and the two delivered a joint statement denouncing the launch.
This time, Abes visit comes weeks after Trump took him and the region by surprise by announcing he had accepted an invitation to sit down with Kim following months of increasingly heated rhetoric over the Norths nuclear weapons program.
Among the major powers in Northeast Asia, Japan has been left out of the recent flurry of diplomacy with North Korea. Abe will be seeking reassurance from Trump that security threats to Japan wont be overlooked in the U.S.-North Korea summit, slated for May or early June.
Mike Pompeo, Trumps pick for secretary of state, said the goal of the summit is to get North Korea to step away from its efforts to hold America at risk with nuclear weapons.
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