Trump heads to Japan
NoKor on top of agenda
US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump throw flowers while visiting the Pearl Harbor Memorial in Honolulu, Hawaii last Friday. Trump paid a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor and its memorial to the USS Arizona, a hallowed place he said he had read about, discussed and studied but had never visited until just before embarking on his first official visit to Asia.
HONOLULU (Reuters) — US President Donald Trump yesterday headed to Japan on the first stop of his 12-day, five-nation tour of Asia, looking to present a united front with the Japanese against North Korea as tensions run high over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests.
Trump is set to speak to US and Japanese forces at Yokota air base shortly after arriving in Japan today to stress the importance of the alliance to regional security.
Ballistic missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions, have exacerbated the most critical international challenge of Trump’s presidency.
Aerial drills conducted over South Korea by two US strategic bombers have raised tensions in recent days.
In a display of golf diplomacy, Trump is to play a round of golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders also played together in Florida earlier this year.
Trump will also have a state call with the Imperial Family at Akasaka Palace during his visit.
Abe and Trump will meet families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
Joined by his wife Melania on part of the trip, Trump’s tour of Asia is the longest by an American president since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Besides Japan, he will also visit South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
His trip got off to a colorful start in Hawaii. He was taken by boat out to the USS Arizona Memorial, where lies the World War II ship that was sunk by the Japanese during the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.
Trump’s trip is to be dominated by trade and how to muster more international pressure on North Korea to give up nuclear weapons.
“We’ll be talking about trade,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday.
“We’ll be talking about obviously North Korea. We’ll be enlisting the help of a lot of people and countries and we’ll see what happens. But I think we’re going to have a very successful trip. There is a lot of good will,” he added.