Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed Friday to further expand bilateral trade and investment as the two governments prepare to start negotiations toward a trade agreement as early as mid-January.
At a meeting in Buenos Aires, part of which was open to the media, Trump urged Abe to address the trade imbalance between the two countries "very quickly," a sign that Washington will push Tokyo in the upcoming talks to cut the U.S. goods trade deficit.
Calling the deficit "massive" and "pretty substantial," Trump said, "We hope that we're going to be balancing it very quickly."