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Japan reportedly wooing Donald Trump in pre-emptive move to stave off trade and North Korea ‘nightmare’
- Tokyo is worried that Trump might again become ‘tariff-happy’ against US allies if he were to be re-elected, analysts say
- Of greater concern is Trump resuming his ‘bromance’ with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and consequently threatening Japan’s security
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The Japanese government has reportedly reached out to Donald Trump’s team after concluding that he is almost certain to be the Republican candidate in the 2024 US presidential election and has a good chance of being re-elected, in what analysts say is a pre-emptive move to stave off a potential “nightmare” scenario for Tokyo.
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While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has not commented on the November 5 election’s potential outcomes, Taro Aso, a former prime minister and the current vice-president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, appears to have been given the task of leading the campaign to engage with people close to the former president.
On January 10, Aso addressed the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, a Washington DC think tank to give a speech about the threat to peace in the Indo-Pacific posed by China’s position on Taiwan.
That same evening, Aso attended a dinner reception with Senator Bill Hagerty, who served as US ambassador to Japan under Trump, the Asahi newspaper reported, before travelling to New York the following day with the aim of meeting Trump. Aso reportedly said that his visit was meant to be “a sign that I wanted to meet him”.
Trump was in New York on that day to attend a court session in a civil fraud trial in which he is a defendant but due to his busy schedule, he was unable to meet Aso.
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