AWKWARD MOMENT ASIDE
The meeting, which included a 30-minute public session followed by a 90-minute closed-door discussion, appeared carefully choreographed to avoid open disagreements – apart from a brief awkward moment when Trump made a joke about Pearl Harbor while seated next to the Japanese prime minister in the Oval Office.
The remark came in response to a Japanese reporter who asked why allies had not been informed ahead of the strikes on Iran. Touching on the surprise, Trump referenced Japan’s attack on the US Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941, which prompted the US to enter World War II.
However, experts said they would not read too much into the remark.
“We should not mix that comment up with the underlying strengths of the relationship,” said politics and international studies professor Stephen Nagy from the International Christian University.
“Trump’s comments, like many things, I don’t think we can take them so seriously, because he uses words so loosely,” he told CNA938.
“(He) says many things that (appear) very consequential and have deep meaning for us. But for him, it’s just a metaphor for whatever he wants to talk about.”
During the public meeting, Takaichi lauded Trump as the only person “who can achieve peace across the world”. Trump also praised Takaichi as a popular and powerful woman following her party’s landslide victory in Japan’s election.
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