When Japanese first lady Akie Abe made her rounds in Washington on Friday, noticeably absent was the high-level chaperone of previous visits — America's first lady.
Rather than Melania Trump, it was the wife of the Japanese ambassador to the United States who accompanied Abe on a visit to a local university, a Japanese Embassy official said.
That was a departure from Abe's previous visits to Washington. In 2007, she was treated to a tour with then-first lady Laura Bush to Mount Vernon, George Washington's home, and in 2015 she and Michelle Obama stopped by a Virginia elementary school with a Japanese immersion program.