U.S. President Donald Trump, left, speaks as Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, during a dinner at the Inakaya restaurant in the Roppongi district on May 26, 2019 in Tokyo, Japan.
Kiyoshi Ota | Getty Images News
Speaking at a press conference with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, U.S. President Trump said he hoped to announce a trade deal with Japan very soon.
During his four-day state visit Trump’ said his goal was to remove trade barriers so as to give U.S. exports a fair footing in Japan.
During his comments, the Nikkei stock market in Japan kept its gains as traders interpreted a largely positive atmosphere between the two men.
Trump described the US’s trade imbalance with Japan as “unbelievably large” but he hoped to address that.
“They are brilliant business people, brilliant negotiatiors and have put us in a tough spot but I think we will have a deal with Japan,” said Trump.
Abe, for his part, said the two leaders had agreed to accelerate two-way trade talks.
Trump earlier explicitly linked trade and security, a connection that disturbs Japan, which puts its U.S. alliance at the core of its defencepolicies.
“It’s all a balance sheet thing,” Trump said at the beginning of his talks with Abe.
“When I talk about a security threat, I talk about a balance sheet,” he said, adding that Japan had bought “tremendous amounts” of U.S. military gear.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted that he expected big moves on trade would wait until after Japan’s upper house election in July.
“Trade-wise, I think we’ll be announcing some things, probably in August, that will be very good for both countries,” Trump said on Monday. “We’ll get the balance of trade, I think, straightened out rapidly.”
Abe, who has developed close ties with Trump since the U.S. leader came to office, stressed nthe closeness of ties.
“This visit of President Trump and Madame Trump is a golden opportunity to clearly show the unshakable bond to the whole world and inside Japan as well,” Abe told the news conference.
Trump and Abe have put on a show of friendship but have policy disagreements over trade and North Korea.
Trump has threatened to target Japanese automakers with high tariffs. He has also spearheaded an expensive trade dispute with China. That trade war between the world’s two largest economies has hurt markets worldwide and confounded U.S. allies, including Japan and the European Union.
Such allies share U.S. concerns about Chinese practices but object to nTrump’s hardball tactics.
Abe and Trump also discussed North Korea.
“I personally think that lots of good things will come with North Korea. Ifeel that. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I feel that,” Trump said on Monday.
On Sunday, Trump had said he was not worried about a recent missile launch by North Korea. That put him at odds with his own national security adviser, John Bolton, who said on Saturday Pyongyang’s recent short-range missile tests violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Japan shares Bolton’s view. They also discussed Iran. Abe is considering a trip there next month, domestic media said, to try to soothe rising tension between Iran and the United States.
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “But I know for a fact that the prime minister is very close with the leadership of Iran, and we’ll see what happens.”
Also on Monday, Trump met families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades.
