When U.S. President Donald Trump visits Japan early next month as part of his first official trip to Asia, he is unlikely to push Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to accept U.S. calls to begin negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement, according to two Japan experts in Washington.
Rather than exposing a rift over a major economic issue, Trump and Abe are expected to highlight their robust alliance in the face of the North Korean nuclear threat and China's assertive territorial claims in the East and South China seas, they say.
"If President Trump opens the issue of an FTA with Japan, it will distract the United States and Japan from more pressing agenda items such as the North Korean threat," said Andrew Oros, director of international studies at Washington College. Pyongyang has developed a nuclear-tipped missile that experts believe could reach the continental United States.