Monday, November 21, 2016

Abe meets Trump

Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, met Donald Trump, the President selected of the US. They had a conversation for more than one hour.


The content of the meeting was not published in detail. Abe said to the reporters that he convinced that Trump deserved to be trusted. Also, Trump presented a photograph in which he smiled beside Abe on his Facebook.

It seems that they were satisfied to speak with each other. This is for the first time for Abe to meet Trump directly. Before the Presidential election, Abe visited the US, to talk with Hillary Clinton, but failed to meet Trump. According to some rumors, Abe was willing to see Trump, but the Japanese government officials hardly arranged the setting then. I guess that the fact that few Japanese had expected Trump to win the Presidential vote was influential.

According to Japanese media, Abe sent a golden golf club to Trump as a present. It is obvious that Abe is eager to attract Trump’s favor for political purpose. Now, Japan relies on the US, more or less, for protecting its land and sea from neighbor nations. But Trump has an idea to withdraw the US troop from Asia because of financial reasons. He declared he would demand the allies of the US to defray all cost for maintaining the troop staying there. Indeed, Japan is now paying approximately 70% of the cost for the US troop in Japan. If the percentage is raised to 100%, it will be burdening for Japan.

Besides the security assurance, there are some other causes of a headache between Japan and the US.  Trump intends to abandon TPP membership. It means that it will become harder for Japan to make profits from exporting product to the US. The effective working of TPP is necessary to realize Abe’s plan of restoring Japan economy.

In this meeting, such confronting issues were not subjected to the conversation, perhaps.

Reuters: Japan PM Abe seeks to build trust with Trump, stresses alliance vital

Reuters says that Abe and Trump are juxtaposed with each other, but are sharing some political goals such as promoting the international status of each nation and improving the relationship with Russia. They are true as I think.

Regardless of his mind, Abe has no choice to respect Trump as the President of the US. Thus, I am not sure how did Abe feel about Trump. Nonetheless, if they are in a good relationship, even superficially, it will be great for the both nations.

*Sequel

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