Visit to the Yokosuka base, strengthens the Tokyo-Washington axis
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will accompany US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One presidential helicopter for a visit to the Yokosuka naval base, south of Tokyo. The local media anticipated this, defining the State Department’s invitation as a gesture intended to underline the solidity of the bilateral alliance between Japan and the United States.
According to sources within the White House, after the first face-to-face summit on Tuesday morning, in fact, the two leaders will travel with a joint transfer from the American military heliport in Tokyo to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington, stationed at the US Navy base in Kanagawa prefecture.
In her first keynote speech in Parliament last week, Takaichi – who became the first woman to lead the Japanese government – expressed her desire to “build a relationship of trust” with the American president, reiterating the objective of further strengthening the Japanese-American alliance. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told an American television network that Trump and Takaichi will have “a very positive relationship”, defining the Japanese prime minister as a “protege” of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, a figure politically close to Trump. A similar gesture dates back to February 2017, when Abe himself accompanied Trump aboard Marine One from the White House to an air base near Washington, before continuing together on Air Force One to Florida – an episode then interpreted as a sign of a particularly warm welcome.
