The recent Trump-Abe summit was, in both formal and informal terms, a ringing confirmation of the U.S.-Japan alliance. It also stressed the transcendent importance of U.S.-Japan relations as a whole in American global diplomacy.
U.S. President Donald Trump personally and publicly confirmed, as the Abe administration fervently hoped, that "all areas under Japan's administrative control" (meaning the Senkaku Islands) fall under the coverage of the U.S.-Japan alliance.
He stressed the importance of freedom of navigation, a matter at issue today in the South China Sea, as well as the dangers of North Korea's nuclear and missile threats.