Trump’s phone pal in N. Korea crisis: Abe

Critics accuse Japanese leader of being sycophantic in pursuit of a bromance

TOKYO — President Donald Trump has made some rocky telephone calls to other heads of state in his 7½ months in office. But he can always count on one world leader for a good chat: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan.

Ever since the pair met in November at Trump Tower in New York just days after the presidential election, they have had a warm relationship that goes well beyond the typical partnership between two long-standing allies.

“It is very unusual,” said Mitoji Yabunaka, a longtime diplomat and former vice minister at Japan’s Foreign Ministry. “It did not happen that way in the past.”

Since Trump was inaugurated in January, he and Abe have met in person three times, golfed together once and talked by telephone 13 times, more than Abe spoke to President Barack Obama in his last four years in office. Over the past week alone, Abe and Trump have spoken by telephone four times.

“The president responds to Abe as a buddy and a friend,” said Sheila A. Smith, a Japan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “And Abe has worked hard to cultivate that kind of relationship with him.”

To be sure, with the North Korean nuclear crisis escalating and a missile flying directly over Japan last week, they have ample reason to chat.

But that same logic applies to South Korea, and relations between Trump and his counterpart there, President Moon Jae-in, are decidedly chillier. Trump waited until the day after Sunday’s nuclear test in North Korea to call Moon, while he talked to Abe twice the day it happened, once before and once after the test.

Analysts sift through the terse accounts that both the White House and Abe’s office release describing their conversations. The word “ironclad” appears frequently to characterize the alliance between the two nations. As North Korea has come to dominate the conversation, the reports inevitably include censure of the North’s actions, with Trump recently saying that the United States was prepared to defend its allies “using the full range of diplomatic, conventional and nuclear capabilities at our disposal.”

In talking to Trump frequently, Abe is partly ensuring that those guarantees remain in place, advisers say, given how erratic Trump can be, sometimes appearing to change policy direction between tweets. The worry is that the promises of yesterday might not hold today.

A person familiar with the thinking of Abe and his Cabinet who is not authorized to speak publicly said that given the unpredictable pronouncements from the Trump administration, Abe wants to keep in close contact to ensure there are no misunderstandings.

Although Abe had expected Hillary Clinton to win the presidential election, his Cabinet has found a more simpatico national security leadership in Trump’s circle. Abe, himself a hard-liner who has called for increasing Japan’s military power, also appreciates the tough talk against North Korea, analysts say.

“I think the Japanese government wants to see some demonstration of American resolve,” said Michael J. Green, a former Asia adviser to President George W. Bush who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Some critics accuse Abe of being too sycophantic in pursuit of a bromance with Trump.

But analysts say there is little to be gained by disagreeing with the president.