Foreign minister Fumio Kishida has spelled out the purpose of his prime minister’s visit to New York on Friday, saying Shinzo Abe will meet with president-elect Donald Trump with a view to highlighting the importance of the two nation’s economic and political ties.
“When you meet with a new president it’s always important,” said Kishida. “The world economy is very fragile at the moment and we think this would be a good time to assert the importance of the relationship between our two nations. We have been allies for a very long time.”
Trump has been causing waves in the geopolitical community with various comments on trade that are contradictory to long standing policies. Tokyo will be looking to pin the incoming America leader down on exactly what their bilateral relations will look like in the future. Abe will fly on to an Asia-Pacific economic summit in Peru after his meeting with Trump in New York.
The U.S. has been an integral part of Japan’s national defence since the Second World War, but Trump made comments in his campaign to the effect that he thought Japan might adopt nuclear weapons in the future.
“We are the only country to have ever suffered a nuclear bombing, for that reason we will never possess nuclear arms, this is a principle of our country,” said Kishida.
The Japanese leadership have been concerned with many of Trump’s comments, not least that regarding nuclear armament, that have left the country wondering about the two nation’s security alliance.
“Some of the tension between the two countries might be down to the cost of keeping U.S. troops in Japan,” said Anthony Russell, Senior Vice President at Monex BMO Securities in a Bloomberg TV interview. “Trump feels that the Japanese government are not contributing enough. Japan insists they are going to strengthen their own forces so that there is less need for American troops.”
