President Donald Trump is in Japan, the second stop of his three-country tour of Asia. After meeting with newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi this morning, he addressed U.S. troops on board the USS George Washington.
Trump met with the widow of Shinzo Abe, Japan’s long-serving prime minister and a close ally of the former U.S. president who was assassinated in 2022.
Trump and Prime Minister Takaichi, an Abe protégé, have bonded over their shared connection with Abe, whose fatal shooting while campaigning in the city of Nara stunned a nation where gun crime and political violence are rare.
“He spoke so well of you long before we met,” Trump told Takaichi before their bilateral meeting this morning. “And I’m not surprised to see that you are now the prime minister, and he would be very happy to know that. I’d also like to congratulate you on being the first woman prime minister. It’s a big deal.”
Earlier, Takaichi thanked Trump for the “great kindness” he had shown Abe’s widow, Akie Abe, who at their meeting today gave Trump a piece of art bearing the word “peace.”
Their meeting came on the same day that Abe’s alleged killer, Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, had his first court hearing, where he pleaded guilty to the crime. “It is true that I did it,” he said, according to Reuters, which cited Japanese broadcaster NHK.
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