Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will likely proceed cautiously in his first meeting with President Donald Trump on Friday as he seeks to avoid economic fallout from tariffs and reaffirm his country’s security alliance with the US.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has made a whirlwind visit to Washington for his first meeting with US President Donald Trump. He huddled this week with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, two executives Trump recently hosted at the White House.
The soft-spoken, cigarette-smoking Ishiba is expected to focus on the fact that Japan is the top foreign investor in the United States, hoping to appeal to Trump’s “America First” policies. Trump and Ishiba are expected to issue a joint statement vowing to build a “golden age” of bilateral relations, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported, echoing the main slogan from the US president’s inaugural speech.
TOKYO — As Japan’s prime minister prepares for his first meeting with President Donald Trump, he is hoping to make a personal connection with the leader of the superpower on which his country depends economically and militarily. But in the unpredictable Trump White House, even a simple meet-and-greet might be a risky gamble.
