At the United Nations General Assembly in September, U.S. President Donald Trump laid out a positive vision for cooperation among nations based on mutual respect and sovereignty. He said that the United States seeks strong partners who control their own destinies, and he showed how his foreign policy is making America and the world safer, stronger and more prosperous.

Nowhere is that more true than here in the Indo-Pacific region. Our work here with allies on North Korea's nuclear and missile threat, our commitment to sustainable regional infrastructure development, our assistance to improve security relationships, and our collaboration with partners to address nonmarket-oriented policies and practices illustrate that the U.S. is more engaged than ever before with Japan and other like-minded countries on the opportunities and challenges facing the Indo-Pacific.

The clearest example of continuing U.S. leadership and engagement was our global effort to achieve a diplomatic opening with North Korea. In close coordination with Japan, we worked with countries in this region and around the world to mount the pressure campaign — including three rounds of U.N. Security Council resolutions that were passed unanimously — which eventually yielded Kim Jong Un's commitment to final, fully verified denuclearization at the historic summit with Trump in Singapore last June.