Investing.com – Japanese Prime Minister (PM) Shinzo Abe will head to Washington on Friday to meet up with President Donald Trump in an encounter that is widely expected to center on trade discussions between the world’s first and third largest economies.
Although Abe was the first foreign leader to meet with Trump after his election victory, this new encounter comes after the U.S. President made good on his promise to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), leaving the Japanese PM in dire need of setting the groundwork for a bilateral trade deal with its second biggest trade partner.
In a meeting with pharmaceutical companies last week, Trump accused Japan, along with China and Germany, of “global freeloading” by using regulations and currency devaluations in their trade dealings with the U.S.
“You look at what China’s doing, you look at what Japan has done over the years. ... they play the money market, they play the devaluation market and we sit there like a bunch of dummies,” Trump also proclaimed via his Twitter account.
Abe will likely propose new cabinet level U.S.-Japan talks on trade, security and macroeconomic issues, including currencies, when he meets Trump on Friday, a Japanese government official involved in planning the summit told Reuters.
Japanese officials also said that Abe plans to put forth a five-pronged plan, the “U.S.-Japan Growth and Employment Initiative,” designed to entice Trump with the creation of up to 700,000 jobs through greater Japanese investment in the United States.
"In a situation in which security relations in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly severe, it is very important to demonstrate the unshakeable U.S.-Japan alliance at home and abroad," Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference.
"This is the most important theme of the U.S.-Japan leaders summit," he said, adding it was also vital to have constructive discussions on how to create a "win-win" relationship by further strengthening U.S.-Japan economic ties.
After Friday’s meeting in D.C., both leaders will travel to Florida and have already arranged to play a round of gold on Saturday, presumably at the Trump International Golf Club near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
Far from the earlier harsh critiques of Japan, Trump seemed determined to make remove the tension from the trip, telling a sports radio station last week that golf was a better way to get to know someone than lunch and saw his match-up with Abe as a "fun" meeting between partners rather than adversaries.