Foreign policy analyst Shihoko Goto is calling President Trump’s four-day visit to Japan a “win-win” for both countries, though the trip did not offer any progress on the policy front.
“It’s a win-win on the surface,” said Goto, a deputy director of Geoeconomics at the Wilson Center, one of the nation’s top non-partisan policy forums.
“I say that because on the diplomatic front, it achieved what it’s supposed to do,” she continued. “That is to say it had great visuals, everything that was calculated to the millisecond went well without a hitch.”
Goto added that the display of a strong alliance between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also sent a strong message to the region as a whole.
“The two leaders have a good relationship between them personally and that sends a signal to the region, especially to a common threat to both the United States and Japan, that is to say, China,” she added.
But the analyst noted that the meeting has posed a number of policy-related questions between the two allies.
“When we went into this meeting we had two issues that we really wanted to make some kind of headway: One of them is on the trade front and one is on North Korea and security,” she said. “We haven’t really made any headway.”
President Trump just finished wrapping up his second visit to Japan, where he met with Abe. The president also became the first foreign leader to meet Japan’s new emperor and empress.
During the visit, Trump broke with Abe on the issue of recent missile tests by North Korea. While Abe called the rocket test a violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution, Trump said he views it “differently” and remained optimistic about a denuclearization deal with Kim Jong Un.
“I view it differently,” Trump said during a news conference in Japan on Monday. “All I know is that there have been no nuclear tests. There have been no ballistic missiles going out. There have been no long-range missiles going out. And I think that someday we’ll have a deal.”
—Tess Bonn
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