In Tokyo on Tuesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga quoted the White House as having denied a report that he had recently mentioned the possibility of terminating the post-war defense pact with Japan, which forms the foundation of the alliance between the two countries.
The top government spokesman was responding to a report issued earlier the same day by Bloomberg News, according to which Trump had recently mused to confidants about withdrawing from the 1951 Japan-U.S. security treaty.
The U.S. president had called the pact "one-sided," according to the report.