Top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi announced on Tuesday ( Feb. 4 ) that Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will meet with US President Donald Trump for a meeting this week.
” If circumstances permit, he will visit the US from Feb 6 to 8 and hold ( his ) first face-to-face Japan-US summit meeting with President Trump in Washington DC”, Hayashi said.
We hope to strengthen our confidence with the fresh US administration through this visit, he continued.
According to the Nikkei business daily, Ishiba wants to talk with Trump about increasing imports of US natural gas, in line with the government’s adage “drill, child, drill”
Ishiba and the then-president-elect Trump reportedly had an unsuccessful attempt to meet him before his January inauguration. They had a quick phone conversation in November.
Trump, but, hosted Akie Abe, the wife of the murdered former prime minister of Japan, for a private dining with Melania Trump at their Florida property in December.
Ishiba emphasized the value of close relationships with the US last week for regional security.
” As the compromise of power in the region undergoes a historical change, we must strengthen Japan-US assistance more, in a practical way”, Ishiba told parliament.
Tokyo had even” proceed to secure the US dedication to the area, to prevent a power vacuum that results in local instability,” he added in a policy speech.
His remarks underscored nervousness over China’s military build-up in the Asia-Pacific and Trump’s” America First” plans, which may include demanding that friends such as Japan shoulder a larger proportion of defence costs.
Japan and the US are important military allies and each other’s best foreign investors.
Additionally in December, SoftBank’s head of Chinese tech, Masayoshi Son, stood next to Trump to reveal a US$ 100 billion expense in the US.
Son also attended Trump’s inauguration, which was followed by announcing that SoftBank would lead a$ 500 billion project called Stargate to build artificial intelligence ( AI ) infrastructure in the US along with Oracle, a chatGPT-maker, and other parties.
Then on Monday night, Son and OpenAI key Sam Altman met Ishiba, and discussed extending” Stargate into Japan”, Son told investigators later.
” We want to make the cutting-edge AI facilities- what I mean by that is the nation’s biggest, cutting-edge AI files centres”, Son said, without giving more details.