U.S. President-elect Donald Trump meets with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, rattled by Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric that cast doubt on longstanding U.S. alliances, meets the American president-elect on Thursday for talks whose details were arranged only at the last minute.
A day before the afternoon meeting in New York, basic logistics such as the time, the place, and who would be in the room were still up in the air, causing anxiety for Japanese officials who are already nervous about the future strength of a alliance that is core to Tokyo’s diplomacy and security.
Trump official Kellyanne Conway said on Thursday morning that Abe would meet Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence at Trump Tower in Manhattan at 5 p.m. ET (2200 GMT).
Abe and other Asian leaders were alarmed at Trump’s pledge during his election campaign to make allies pay more for help from U.S. forces, his suggestion that Japan should acquire its own nuclear weapons, and his staunch opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.
The meeting will be the Republican Trump’s first face-to-face foray into international diplomacy as president-elect.
A brash outsider who has never held public office, Trump has been consumed since winning last week’s election with working out who will occupy senior positions in his administration. His transition officials do not yet have access to detailed briefing documents on national security and economic policy.
Conway sought to convey a sense of an informal first encounter with Abe, telling reporters it would not include any “diplomatic agreements” out of deference to President Barack Obama, who does not hand over to Trump until Jan. 20.
“Any deeper conversations about policy and the relationship between Japan and the United States will have to wait until after the inauguration,” she said in an interview with CBS.
Nevertheless, the last-minute arrangements were unsettling for the Japanese. Abe is a political blue blood and veteran lawmaker who worked closely with Obama, a Democrat, on the 12-nation TPP trade pact, which was part of Obama’s push to counter the rising strength of China and a pillar of Abe’s economic reforms.
