Biden to meet Japan’s PM Kishida amid shared concerns
WASHINGTON — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a much-anticipated visit to Washington on Tuesday aiming to spotlight shared concerns about provocative Chinese military action in the Pacific and at a rare moment of public difference between the two nations over a Japanese company’s plan to buy an iconic U.S. company.
Kishida and his wife stopped by the White House Tuesday evening ahead of today’s official visit and formal state dinner as President Joe Biden looks to celebrate a decadeslong ally he sees as the cornerstone of his Indo-pacific policy. Kishida will be the fifth world leader honored by Biden with a state dinner since he took office in 2021.
Ahead of the White House visit, Kishida visited Arlington National Cemetery and stopped by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Biden and Kishida today will hold talks and take part in a joint news conference before Biden fetes the Japanese leader with the state dinner in the East Room.
The prime minister has also been invited to address a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday. He will be just the second Japanese leader to address the body; Shinzo Abe gave a speech to Congress in 2015.
The visit comes after Biden announced last month he opposes the planned sale of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel of Japan, exposing a rift in the partnership at the moment the two leaders aim to reinforce it. Biden argued in announcing his opposition that the U.S. needs to “maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steelworkers.”
Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, Biden’s envoy to Tokyo, sought Monday to downplay the impact of Biden’s opposition to the U.S. Steel acquisition to the relationship. Emanuel noted that in February the Biden administration approved a plan that would drive billions of dollars in revenue to a U.s.-based subsidiary of the Japanese company Mitsui for crane production in the United States.
“The U.S.’S relationship with Japan is a lot deeper and stronger and more significant than a single commercial deal,” said Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, in a joint appearance at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies with Japan’s chief envoy to Washington. “As we would say in Chicago, you got to chill.”