The uneven story of US-Japan relations
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has just concluded a visit to the United States. His meeting at the White House, and a private dinner at the Mar-a-Lago Club (the "Winter White House"), as well as a round of golf on Florida's Palm Beach with US President Donald Trump seem to make him feel honored.
In November, when Abe met Trump, he gifted the then president-elect a luxury, gold-colored golf driver. This time, Abe carried a much more precious gift for Trump, in the hope of putting the Washington-Tokyo alliance back on track.
Trump's remark during the campaign trail that Japan was manipulating its currency to steal US jobs had made Abe rather nervous, and his threat to bring the US troops home if Japan did not pay the entire cost for the deployment of US armed forces there had perturbed Abe. And that Trump withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement on his first day in office might have made Abe feel the new US president actually meant what he said on the campaign trail.
