Weapons for sale:
President Trump urges Japan to buy U.S. military equipment for its own safety and to generate jobs in America.
TOKYO — President Trump said Monday that Japan could protect itself from a nuclear-armed North Korea by buying billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment, drawing an explicit link between trade and security as he began a complex, politically charged tour of Asia.
By turns generous and challenging, Trump saluted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as among his best friends in the club of world leaders. But he railed against what he said were chronic trade imbalances with Japan. And he implicitly acknowledged his disappointment that Abe did not shoot down missiles that North Korea recently fired over Japan.
“He will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of additional military equipment from the United States,” Trump said, standing alongside Abe at the Akasaka Palace in Tokyo. “The prime minister of Japan is going to be purchasing massive amounts of military equipment, as he should.”
“It’s a lot of jobs for us and a lot of safety for Japan,” the president added.
Trump steered clear of the inflammatory statements about North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, that he has used in the past. But he defended his use of such confrontational language, suggesting that the reluctance of his predecessors to make such statements had emboldened Kim.
“Some people said that my rhetoric is very strong, but look what’s happened with very weak rhetoric over the last 25 years,” Trump said. “Look where we are right now.”
Trump’s remarks came on a day of high pomp and plain-spoken politics, which showcased both the president’s fitful adjustment to the rituals of statecraft and his determination to keep pounding at the hotbutton issues that vaulted him into the White House.
Trump used a breakfast meeting of Japanese and American business executives to deliver a scathing critique of the trade relationship between the two countries. Japan, he said, bought virtually no cars from the United States while exporting millions of vehicles into the U.S. market.
“Try building your cars in the United States instead of shipping them over,” Trump said, disregarding the fact that Japanese carmakers have built huge assembly plants in the United States. “That’s not too much to ask,” he continued. “Is that rude to ask?”