New Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he is considering visiting the United States to meet the president-elect before the country’s January inauguration, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported Sunday.

"As the prime minister of Japan, an ally of the U.S., it is necessary for me to have a relationship (with the president-elect) before the inauguration in January next year," the Yomiuri quoted him as saying in an interview that took place Saturday.

The U.S. is due to hold its presidential election on Nov. 5, with Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump facing off against Democratic rival and current Vice President Kamala Harris in what is expected to be a close race.

Ishiba is scheduled to visit South America in mid-November to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting in Peru and the Group of 20 leaders' Summit in Brazil, but said that he “would not rule out the possibility” of visiting the United States before or after that.

The prime minister held his first talks over the phone with current U.S. President Joe Biden on Oct. 2, with Ishiba noting that the U.S.-Japan alliance “has been strengthened considerably” under his predecessor, former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and pledging “to continue along that path.”

Japanese leaders have long put a premium on meeting early with U.S. presidents.

In November 2016, shortly after Trump was elected president, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the trek to New York to become the first foreign leader to meet with him, with the pair building a close personal relationship.

While a win by Harris would likely mean a continuation of Biden's policies, a return to the White House by the mercurial Trump would represent a more challenging prospect for Ishiba, who doubled down Sunday during an NHK TV program on a pledge to revise the allies’ Status of Forces Agreement to put them on a more equal footing.

Senior U.S. officials have reportedly expressed no interest in such a move, while it is unclear how a Trump administration might view the proposal.

Tokyo is widely believed to be viewing the possible re-election of Trump with concern, considering the former president’s unorthodox approach to foreign and economic policy, his disdain for U.S. alliances and the absence of any apparent “Trump whisperers” following Abe’s assassination.

In April, former Prime Minister Taro Aso, who was at the time the deputy head of Ishiba’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, met with Trump for talks in New York, highlighting behind-the-scenes moves by Japan to cultivate ties with the former president’s camp ahead of the U.S. election.

In a signal of what is likely on Trump’s mind when it comes to the U.S.-Japan alliance, the former president’s campaign said in a statement afterward that the pair had discussed a number of shared security and economic concerns, with Trump praising Japan’s increased defense spending.

That statement indicated that Aso had likely emphasized Japan’s push to double defense spending by 2027 in a bid to preemptively counter Trump’s well-documented view that Japan, which hosts some 54,000 U.S. troops, is not paying its fair share to defend itself.