In a rare move highlighting the depth of the two countries’ cooperation, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is expected to travel with President Donald Trump on Marine One to a U.S. military facility close to Tokyo, according to a White House source.
According to the source, Trump and Takaichi will examine the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington, which is stationed at the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, following their first in-person meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday.
According to the source, the U.S. government has contacted Japan regarding a cooperative helicopter flight from a U.S. military heliport in Tokyo to the Yokosuka facility in nearby Kanagawa Prefecture.
Trump’s Japan visit is part of a diplomatic tour of Asia that will also take him to Malaysia and South Korea, where multilateral gatherings are scheduled. He is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea amid heightened tensions over trade.
In her first policy speech in parliament, Takaichi, who became Japan’s first female prime minister earlier this week, said Friday that she wants to build a relationship of trust through the planned summit with Trump, expressing her resolve to elevate the bilateral alliance to new heights.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a U.S. television network that Trump and Takaichi will have a “very good relationship,” calling her a “protege” of the late former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who was “very close” to Trump.
In February 2017, Abe accompanied Trump aboard Marine One from the White House to an air base near Washington, before flying together on Air Force One to Florida, in what was seen as an unusually warm reception.