By Tim Kelly
TOKYO (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Japan’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Tuesday for talks on trade and security, a week after the hardline conservative became Japan’s first female leader and vowed to accelerate a military buildup.
Takaichi is expected to offer a package of U.S. investments in a $550-billion deal agreed this year, including cooperation in shipbuilding, sources familiar with the preparations previously told Reuters.
She will also seek to please the leader of Japan’s trade partner and security ally with purchases of pickup trucks, soybeans and natural gas, the sources said.
While Trump has previously said Tokyo is not spending enough to defend its islands from an increasingly assertive China, Takaichi is not expected to commit to new defence spending targets beyond the 2% of GDP pledged by her predecessors.
Trump, who met Japan’s emperor on Monday, will hold summit talks and have lunch with Takaichi at the Akasaka Palace, before heading to a major U.S. naval base south of the capital.
Trump was last at the palace, an ornate residence built in a European style, in 2019 for talks with late prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022.
“I look forward to meeting the new prime minister,” Trump told reporters on his flight from Malaysia, after attending a meeting of ASEAN, the Southeast Asian economic bloc.
“I hear phenomenal things. She was a great ally and friend of Shinzo Abe, who was my friend.”
During their meeting Takaichi will present Trump with one of Abe’s golf clubs in a gesture meant to rekindle the close bond the two leaders had formed on golf courses in Japan and the United States, a source familiar with the plan told Reuters.
The source sought anonymity as they were not allowed to speak to the media.
A similar close relationship with Trump could help Takaichi bolster her weak political position at home.
Though she has seen a surge in public support since becoming prime minister, her coalition government is two votes shy of a majority in parliament’s lower house.
On Tuesday afternoon Trump will visit the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka near Tokyo, which is home to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, a symbol of U.S. military power in the region. Takaichi will join Trump, domestic media said.
Trump will meet business leaders in Tokyo, before travelling on Wednesday to South Korea. In talks there with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said he hopes to seal a trade deal between the world’s two biggest economies.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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