Trump and Takaichi sign trade and rare earths deals heralding 'golden age' of alliance

Trump and Takaichi sign trade and rare earths deals heralding 'golden age' of alliance:

Trump and Takaichi sign trade and rare earths deals heralding 'golden age' of alliance

Trump and Takaichi sign trade and rare earths deals heralding 'golden age' of alliance US President Donald Trump is in Japan on the second leg of his Asia tour. In the last hour, Trump met with the new.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo. He is keen to strengthen ties between the two countries. Local media reports suggest that a deal for rare earths and other key minerals needed for high-tech manufacturing is almost complete.

Sheila Smith is a senior fellow for Asia-Pacific studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. Welcome to the program. Thank you, Amy. It was a pleasure to be with you. Trump and Abe are ideological allies in many ways.

What can we expect from their meeting? I'm sure it's very important for the new Japanese prime minister.

She's just been elected prime minister by the parliament there in just a week. So this is a very important diplomatic meeting for her. She would like to establish a personal relationship with President Trump.

She believes in former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who, as you may recall, was prime minister during President Trump's presidency. So she's eager to make sure she has the same relationship with Trump that he did.

Well, the US has been an unlikely ally under Trump for years. What kind of new challenges will there be?

The face of the prime minister as she tries to maintain a strong relationship with the US? Well, of course, there are two obvious problems for America's allies, Japan,

but for the Europeans as well, there have been trade and defense spending or defense partnerships for the alliance. The trade deal with the US and Japan was of course agreed to over the summer and under the direction of the former prime minister.

Um, but there are still some unanswered questions about the $550 billion in Japanese foreign direct investment that was promised along with the tariff reductions that President Trump agreed to. I think

you saw the pieces of that deal in this meeting. For example, there were questions about the Japanese government having agreed to buy Ford trucks for its supply and apparently a new agreement on cooperation between Japan and the United States on the supply chain for rare earths and other key minerals. 

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So there is still economic discussions going on and I think there will be a deeper question in the coming months and years about how much Japan is going to spend on its defense as well. So it sounds like you don't expect those questions to be resolved at this meeting. Um, it's going to take a lot of time in the ongoing negotiations.

I think so. On the defense piece, think that the economic piece will continue to be central to the US-Japan alliance.

As it is with other US allies. But the defense piece will probably be a little bit more on the front burner in the next year. Japan has a host support agreement with the United States, which is the Japanese government.

The spending on US forces stationed in Japan is up for renewal and negotiation next year. But of course, there is also

the question of whether the Trump administration really wants its allies to spend more on defense. Now whether there will be a numerical target because in Europe spending 5% of GDP I doubt it in the Japanese case

But there could also be some kind of pressure from the Trump administration that is coming down the road. Both leaders are quite vocal about China.

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Do you think they are finding common ground there?

So I think so. You know, President Trump is heading into the next set of APEC meetings in Korea. Here on Thursday. That is expected. There is a framework agreement in the US government, according to the Treasury Secretary. He says they have reached a framework,

a basic framework of understanding with the Chinese, but until Trump meets with them, we

won't really be sure what the details are. The expectation is that China exports rare earths.

The United States will start again. They have been stopped and also that Trump will not go ahead with his um.

The idea of ​​putting a 100% tariff on Chinese goods. But make no mistake about it, this is going to be a difficult conversation and I don't expect all of the US-China economic issues to be resolved on Thursday.

But this is one of the big pieces of the president's trip to Asia. Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC.

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