Tough Balancing Act for Japan’s Abe in Second Meeting With Trump
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was the first foreign leader to meet with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump after his election. On Friday, Feb. 10, he will meet with President Trump, before spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago in Florida.
In that first meeting, experts believed Abe’s task was simply to assure Trump that the two are on the same side, after plenty of inflammatory campaign rhetoric from the real estate mogul. In this second meeting, he has much more work cut out for him, not only in maintaining U.S.-Japanese trade, but also in ensuring Japan still has a hearty welcome under the U.S. security umbrella.
“This meeting will be different,” Celine Pajon, a research fellow at IFRI’s Center for Asian Studies, told Foreign Policy, “because Trump’s first decisions as president showed that he is actually serious and determined to apply the program he announced during his campaign.”
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Céline PAJON
Chercheuse, responsable de la recherche Japon et Indo-Pacifique, Centre Asie de l'Ifri
