One year on, Abe keeps friendly ties with Trump

January 20, 2018

Tokyo- As US President Donald Trump marks the first anniversary of his inauguration on Saturday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains a rare national leader with a friendly relationship with the controversy-prone president.

Abe obviously believes it necessary to build trust at a summit level to strengthen the bilateral security alliance with the United States.

"With President Trump, I've had six summit meetings and 18 telephone conferences," Abe stressed at a meeting with supporters in the western city of Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture, during his visit to his constituency this month.

Abe and Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, held phone talks only a total of 11 times over some four years before Obama left the White House.

Even before Trump was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2017, Abe visited Trump in New York in November 2016 just after of his victory the presidential election, becoming the first foreign leader to meet him since the poll.

Last year, Abe and Trump shared a lot of time having talks and playing golf together when Abe visited the United States in February and when Trump visited Japan in November.

In the US media, Abe is widely viewed as one of the few world leaders close to Trump.

The only issue on which Abe did not appear to support Trump is the president's decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"The Japan-US relationship is firmer than ever in history, underpinned by the relationship of trust between the prime minister and the president," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference on Thursday.

Japanese opposition parties, however, are concerned that Abe is too close to Trump. "If an emergency occurs on the Korean Peninsula, Japan could be embroiled in US military operations," a senior Japanese Communist Party member warned.

Despite the amicable relations between Abe and Trump, Tokyo is braced for possible harsh demands on trade issues from the Trump administration ahead of the US midterm election in November this year, after Trump highlighted a need to reduce US trade deficits during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump has endorsed Abe's "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" strategy, aimed at countering China's growing expansionist moves at sea, and confirmed his country's obligations under the bilateral security treaty to defend Japan, including the Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by China.

But Trump remains frustrated by his country's huge trade deficits, including with Japan. "Japan could be forced to make more difficult concessions (in possible talks on a Japan-US free trade pact) than in the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal," from which the United States withdrew under the Trump administration, a Japanese government source said.

The US side could also step up pressure on Japan to introduce US defense equipment.

Trump has said in a US newspaper interview that the recently announced plan of Japanese automakers Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. to launch a new plant in the United States is in line with his wishes, after he pressed Abe to help facilitate such moves by Japanese companies. Jiji Press