Washington – Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru ishiba He did not spare at work on the way while preparing for his first meeting with President Donald Trump.
He snuggled this week with the SoftBank CEO, Masayoshi, and the Operai CEO, Sam Altman, two Trump executives recently Organized in the White House. He sought advice from his immediate predecessor, Fumio Kishida.
Ishiba even asked Shinzo Abe’s widow, Japanese prime minister with whom Trump joined golf rounds during his first term.
“It will be our first face to face conversations, so I would like to concentrate on building a personal trust relationship between the two,” Istiba told journalists before heading to Washington for his visit to the White House, which takes place on Friday .
It is a difficult task for Ishiba to replicate Trump’s relationship with Abe, who resigned as prime minister in 2020 And it was killed by an armed man While sporating a campaign speech in 2022. However, Iliba is making a priority connect with Trump.
Ishiba, who assumed the position in October, will be only the second world leader to visit the White House during Trump’s new mandate. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week was The first organized by Trump.
Ishiba arrived on Thursday night for his visit of approximately 24 hours to Washington. It is expected to spend a little more than two hours with Trump for a work lunch and a joint press conference before making the trip back to Tokyo.
Even so, making the whirlwind is essential for Ishiba, since it seeks to make sure that the United States and Japan remain solid with Trump’s return and its worldview “America First”. Both countries have been challenged by China’s growth Economic and military assertiveness in the Pacific and concerns about A North Korea with nuclear weapons.
Ishiba will also seek to remind Trump, who has Proposed tariffs Both in friends and enemies in an effort to boost US manufacturing, about the long alliance between the United States and Japan. Japanese companies employ almost 1 million Americans and have occupied the first place for foreign direct investment accumulated in the US. In the last five years.
Another delicate problem that ishiba is prepared to address Nippon Steel’s efforts from Japan to obtain an acquisition of $ 14.1 billion of the American steel based in Pittsburgh. President Joe Biden before leaving office last month blocked the dealciting national security concern. Trump said in December that he was “totally against the great and powerful steel of the United States bought by a foreign company.”
Ishiba is not necessarily planning to mention the agreement, but has prepared to present a case satisfied for Nippon if Trump raises it, according to a Japanese government official who insisted on the anonymity to discuss the private deliberations of the leader.
Nippon and US steel. UU. have filed a demand aimed at annulled the blocking of the agreement. And Nippon has intensified its public impulse, arguing that the “transaction is in line with the focus of President Trump” in manufacturing and “contributes to the objectives of President Trump that promote US investment, create US jobs and strengthen the manufacture of USA”.
Defense spending is also expected to be on the agenda of leaders. Japan has pledged 2% of GDP defense expenditure by 2027, or 60% in five years. This expenditure level is found with the reference point established for members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Japan cooperates with the NATO alliance but is not a member.
But Trump is pressing other allies to spend even more in defense, challenging them to Increase 5% spending of its general economic production, a reference point that will be difficult for the countries to achieve.
Ishiba could remind Trump that Japan is a great defender of the United States defense industry, spending billions of dollars in combat airplanes and antimile defense systems to try to avoid any concern of the Republican President.
“President Trump is also a good listener. Maybe (() we will have a good chemistry, ”Istiba told reporters earlier this week.
Ishiba invited SoftBank’s son and Openi Altman to his office this week while preparing for his Trump meeting. Last month, the president of the United States brought Son, Altman and the CEO of Oracle, Larry Ellison to the White House, to detect an investment of $ 500 billion for infrastructure linked to artificial intelligence by the companies of three executives.
Istiba during their meeting told them that he wants Japan and the United States to deepen cooperation in AI to make the world a more peaceful and safer place.
“I think that Prime Minister ishiba certainly sees that this is an important and critical opportunity for him to restore what the exceptional ties were between President Trump and Japan in the first Trump administration,” said Senator Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee who served as Trump ambassador to Japan during his first administration.
Abe was one of the few world leaders who developed a link with Trump during his first mandate.
Abe built a relationship with Trump about golf and dinner rounds with his wives in President Palm Beach, Florida, Resort, Mar-a-Lago. During Trump’s state visit in 2019 to Japan, Abe took Trump to A Wrestling Party of Sumo and arranged that he was the first leader to meet with the recently enthroned Emperor of Japan.
The narrow bond of Abe and Trump was even more remarkable, because Trump at the beginning of his first term of the White House threatened a “border tax” in the Japanese manufacturer Toyota if he built a plant in Mexico and made fun of Japan by what he considered insufficient defense expense.
Hagerty, at an event at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Thursday, said it might not be a bad idea for Ishiba, who played golf in high school, but since then he has renounced the sport, to dust off his clubs while seeking to link with Trump .
“I hope you take golf lessons again,” Haggerty said, “because I found that golf diplomacy is a wonderful opportunity for us.”
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Yamaguchi reported from Tokyo. The AP Didi Tang writer contributed to this report.
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