Trump Heads to Japan with NKorea on His Mind
Local Editor
US President Donald Trump is heading to Japan on the first stop of his five-nation tour of Asia on Saturday, looking to present a united front with the Japanese against North Korea as tensions run high over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests.
Trump, who is on a 12-day trip, is to speak to US and Japanese forces at Yokota air base shortly after arriving in Japan on Sunday and looked to stress the importance of the alliance to regional security.
Ballistic missile tests by North Korea and its sixth and largest nuclear test, in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, exacerbated the most critical international challenge of Trump's presidency.
In a display of golf diplomacy, Trump is to play a round of golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The two leaders also played together in Florida earlier this year.
Trump will also have a state call with the Imperial Family at Akasaka Palace during his visit. Abe and Trump will meet families of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.
Trump's tour of Asia is the longest by an American president since George H.W. Bush in 1992. Besides Japan, he will visit South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
He extended the trip by a day on Friday when he agreed to participate in a summit of East Asian nations in Manila.
Trump's trip is to be dominated by trade and how to muster more international pressure on North Korea to give up nuclear weapons.
"We'll be talking about trade," Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday. "We'll be talking about obviously North Korea. We'll be enlisting the help of a lot of people and countries and we'll see what happens. But I think we're going to have a very successful trip. There is a lot of good will."
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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