US Vice President Mike Pence and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday reaffirmed the need to keep sanctions on North Korea to achieve its denuclearization as they showcased their bilateral alliance, while Pence also urged Japan to do more to reduce US trade deficit. Pence and Abe also agreed to deepen cooperation in promoting energy, infrastructure and providing loans to nations in the region.<\/p>\n
Pence said the US-Japan alliance is a \u201ccornerstone\u201d of the region\u2019s peace and prosperity and said Japan is not only an ally but a friend, but that Japan needs to do more to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. \u201cJapan is an indispensable trade partner for the United States,\u201d he said. \u201cThe United States has had a trade imbalance with Japan for too long.\u201d Abe and President Donald Trump agreed in September to start bilateral free trade talks, which are expected to begin early next year. Pence also said he expected Japan\u2019s increased \u201cinvestment\u201d in stepping up the country\u2019s defense. Japan\u2019s Deputy Chief Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters later that Japan limited defense purchases to necessities and no details were discussed Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Japan has faced demands that it reduce its trade surplus with the US and is also concerned about the impact of Trump\u2019s trade war with China. Pence said in a recent opinion piece in The Washington Post that America will soon begin negotiations for \u201ca historic trade agreement with Japan.\u201d Trump\u2019s administration has made trade agreements with South Korea, Mexico and Canada. Pence wrote that the new trade deals \u201cwill put American jobs and American workers first.\u201d Pence and Abe gave reassurances of their cooperation on North Korea\u2019s denuclearization.<\/p>\n
Pence also said the US will continue to put diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea and urged all Indo-Pacific nations to maintain pressure and sanctions until the complete denuclearization of North Korea is achieved. Abe said Japan and the US will continue to work together to get North Korea, which has hard-working people and rich resources, realize it has a bright future if it keeps its promise. On China, Abe explained recent improvements in Japan-China relations as demonstrated in his visit to Beijing for formal bilateral summit with President Xi Jinping. Pence said the US wants a relationship with China based on fairness and reciprocity, and that Japan and the US will continue to cooperate closely to deal with China\u2019s increased influence in the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Vice President Mike Pence and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday reaffirmed the need to keep sanctions on North Korea to achieve its denuclearization as they showcased their bilateral alliance, while Pence also urged Japan to do more to reduce US trade deficit. Pence and Abe also agreed to deepen cooperation in promoting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47204"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47206,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47204\/revisions\/47206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}