Abe, adviser differ on Don

Japan PM to boost ties, adviser says wrong US trade policy intolerable

Tokyo, Jan. 20: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday pledged to boost ties with Donald Trump’s new administration while one of his advisers said Japan should push back if President-elect Donald Trump based trade and other economic policies on “wrong economics”, ahead of the US President-elect’s inauguration later in the day.

“In the past, present and from now on, the JapanUS alliance has been the cornerstone of our diplomacy and security policy,” Mr Abe said in a speech marking the start of a new parliamentary session.

“I’m planning to visit the US as soon as possible and strengthen the alliance further with new US President Trump.”

In his wide-ranging speech Friday, Mr Abe also said Japan would host a trilateral summit with China and South Korea this year and said he planned to visit Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

In November, Mr Abe met with Mr Trump in New York, the first foreign leader to sit down with him after a campaign that included rhetoric that alarmed many US allies, including Japan.

Mr Trump mused about pulling thousands of US troops from the AsiaPacific region, and suggested officially pacifist Japan and South Korea

nuclear weapons to defend themselves.

He also set off concerns about the fate of Japanese firms doing business in the US after threatening Toyota with punitive tariffs over its new vehicle plant in Mexico.

In an unusually direct expression of concern about potential protectionism, Koichi Hamada, emeritus professor of economics at Yale University and Cabinet adviser, said Mr Abe could relax his timetable for balancing the budget in the next four years and should be ready to further delay a planned sales-tax hike to ensure economic growth.

Threats by Trump, who takes office on Friday, to impose a “border tax” on imports and take other protectionist measures have raised uncertainties about global trade.

“There is some danger if he bases his decisions on wrong economics without listening to good advisers, and if he thinks that he could manage national economic matters as he does his real-estate company,” Mr Hamada said in an interview on Thursday.