Japan PM heads to U.S. for Trump summit

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba visits the U.S. to discuss trade, defense, and energy security with President Trump.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba heads to the United States on Thursday (February 6, 2025) ahead of President Donald Trump’s second summit with a foreign leader since his return to the White House.

Japan is one of the closest allies of the United States in Asia with around 54,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in the country.

Mr. Ishiba will be pushing for reassurance on the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance, as Mr. Trump’s “America First” agenda risks encroaching on the nations’ trade and defence ties.

He may also propose increasing imports of U.S. natural gas, local media said, chiming with Mr. Trump’s plan to “drill, baby, drill” while boosting energy security for resource-poor Japan.

“The intention is to present a win-win value proposition from Ishiba to the president,” Sheila Smith, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

Also, “Japan has cut its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from Russia. So Japan desperately needs to open up new sources of LNG, and other energy more broadly,” she said.

Mr. Trump will meet Mr. Ishiba in Washington on Friday (February 7, 2025) — just days after a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where the U.S. president sparked uproar with a proposal to take over the Gaza Strip.