Trump opens Asia trip talking tough
TOKYO — President Donald Trump kicked off an extensive swing through Asia with a campaign-style rally Sunday with U.S. troops in Japan, as he looked toward a lengthy trip likely to be dominated by talks on confronting the nuclear threat from North Korea.
In a speech after Air Force One landed at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo on a crisp, sunny morning, Trump never mentioned Pyongyang by name. Sounding a militaristic tone, he sought to project toughness in the face of global challenges, saying the United States armed forces stood ready to defend itself and its allies and “fight to overpower” its adversaries.
“No one — no dictator, no regime and no nation — should underestimate, ever, American resolve,” Trump said, having shed his suit jacket for a leather bomber jacket as he addressed hundreds of fatigues-clad women and men. “You are the greatest threat to tyrants and dictators who seek to prey on the innocent.”
Breaking with tradition
for U.S. presidents on foreign soil, Trump used his speech to promote his domestic record with a distinct political edge, asserting the economy and military were far better off since he became president.
“We are back home starting to do, I will tell you — and you’re reading, and you’re seeing — really, really well,” Trump told the troops, noting that the stock market has surged and unemployment has been low, with almost
2 million jobs added “since a very, very special day — it’s called Election Day.”
“We’ve dealt ISIS one brutal defeat after another, and it’s about time,” he said, adding that he has proposed increases in the defense budget. “That’s a lot different than in the past.”
On his way to Japan, Trump told reporters he would probably meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia next week to discuss the North Korean threat, part of his 12-day, five-country tour through
Asia that is also likely to focus on trade.
White House officials had said a meeting by Trump and Putin — who last held face-to-face talks in Hamburg, Germany, in July — was a possibility on the sideline of the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Da Nang, Vietnam.
“We want Putin’s help on North Korea,” Trump said.
The White House also signaled that Trump could decide on this trip to designate North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, a largely symbolic move since it is already among the world’s most heavily sanctioned countries. Still, the gesture would reinforce the administration’s efforts to cast the North as a global pariah.
Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, and other administration officials are looking at the prospect “very closely,” a senior White House official told reporters in Tokyo on Sunday, and a decision will come “very soon.”
The president used his speech Sunday to call for building a “free and open Indo-Pacific” region, a new approach to Asia that is likely to be seen by China as a challenge. The idea, first proposed by the Japanese and adopted in recent days by Tillerson, envisions the United States strengthening ties with three other democracies in the region — Japan, Australia and India — to contain a rising China.
“We will seek new opportunities for cooperation and commerce, and we will partner with friends and allies to pursue a free and open IndoPacific region,” Trump said. “We will seek free, fair and reciprocal trade.”