TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Abe, Trump meeting being arranged for Feb 10
The Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact is expected to be one of the major items in the agenda.
Change Size
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe waves to the crowd in this January 2017 file photo. Abe is scheduled to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington. (AP/Aaron Favila)
T
he Japanese and US governments are making final arrangements to hold the first bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump on February 10 in Washington, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.
Ahead of the planned talks between the two leaders, Defence Minister Tomomi Inada will hold her first meeting with US counterpart James Mattis in Tokyo early next month.
During the series of talks, the Japanese side will likely affirm with the new Trump administration the importance of the Japan-US alliance. Given that Trump formally announced that the United States will pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact, trade policy is also expected to be one of the major agenda items.
Abe plans to soon hold talks with Trump via telephone and finalise the schedule of their meeting.
In November last year, Abe met with Trump in New York for the first time. During their meeting next month, they will likely agree on basic foreign and economic policies to strengthen the alliance.
In particular, Abe and Trump plan to share their assessment of China’s high-handed maritime advances in the East China Sea and South China Sea as well as North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. They will seek close cooperation between their countries on those issues, following the policy course taken by the administration of former US President Barack Obama.
Trump declared that the United States will withdraw from the TPP and said he will proceed with negotiations for bilateral trade agreements instead. Criticising automobile trade as “not fair”, he is also poised to regard the US trade deficit with Japan as problematic.
It appears it would be difficult to urge Trump to reconsider his decision to leave the TPP. The Japanese and US governments, therefore, are carefully coordinating the particulars of working-level talks on a future trade framework.
Meanwhile, Inada and Mattis will likely confirm bilateral security cooperation during their talks.
Mattis also plans to visit South Korea. It will be the first overseas trip by a Cabinet member of the Trump administration.
Based on an “America first” policy, Trump called on Japan and South Korea during the US presidential election campaign to shoulder more costs to station US troops in their countries. The burden related to the Japan-US alliance, such as the costs of hosting US troops in Japan, will likely be a focus of attention during the planned Inada-Mattis and Abe-Trump meetings.
Inada plans to explain Japan’s share of those costs, as well as the expansion of Japan’s role based on security-related laws.
This article appeared on The Japan News newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta Post
