By Kiyoshi Takenaka and John Geddie
TOKYO (Reuters) -Among the gifts offered up by Japan’s new premier Sanae Takaichi to U.S. President Donald Trump in their first meeting on Tuesday was a putter used by Shinzo Abe, his golfing buddy and the country’s late leader.
Displayed in a glass case alongside a gold-leaf golf ball and bag signed by Japanese major winner Hideki Matsuyama, the club was just one of a litany of references to Trump’s bond with Abe that underpinned ties between the countries during his first term.
It is a bond that Takaichi, a protegee of Abe, who was assassinated by a lone gunman in 2022, will be eager to rekindle to bolster her minority administration and navigate thorny issues such as defence spending that might crop up, analysts say.
“I think it has significant meaning,” said Masahiko Shibayama, a lawmaker who served as Abe’s aide during Trump’s first term, speaking about the leaders’ shared connection to the slain prime minister.
“I believe the relationship of trust between two top leaders like this is certain to lead to the strengthening of the alliance,” he said.
Coincidentally, the long-awaited trial of the man accused of fatally shooting Abe began on Tuesday in the western city of Nara, Takaichi’s hometown.
GREAT FRIEND SHARED
Talk turned to Abe as soon as Trump stepped into the ornate Akasaka Palace in central Tokyo to exchange pleasantries and pose for photos with Takaichi, a hardline conservative who became Japan’s first female leader last week.
“He was a great friend of mine and a great friend of yours,” Trump said as the pair shook hands. Takaichi was given her first cabinet post in Abe’s initial 2006-2007 administration and later elevated to home minister in his second 2012-2020 term.
At the start of summit talks with Trump after a lavish honour guard welcome, Takaichi first thanked him for his “enduring friendship” with Abe and for hosting his widow Akie Abe at his Mar-a-Lago retreat shortly after Trump’s election victory last year.
Her words were translated into English by Sunao Takao, an interpreter formerly used by Abe, who Trump once jokingly referred to as junior prime minister.
Mark Davidson, a former senior U.S. diplomat in Japan who teaches politics at Temple University in Tokyo, said it was a smart move for Takaichi to invoke Abe’s memory.
“With President Trump, all politics is personal,” said Davidson.
“He had a very close, warm and trusting relationship with Prime Minister Abe. I think that Prime Minister Takaichi’s close ties with late Prime Minister Abe set up this relationship for success.”
Takaichi and Trump also signed a pair of baseball caps emblazoned with ‘JAPAN IS BACK’, a catchphrase first used by Abe that Takaichi adopted in her leadership campaign.
Abe was the first foreign leader to meet Trump after his 2016 victory, the start of a relationship that blossomed over several rounds of golf in the United States and Japan.
Takaichi may not share the same love for golf, but she said she had watched the first few innings of a Major League Baseball game with Trump before Tuesday’s formalities began.
Forging a similar bond with the leader of Japan’s key security and trade partner could help Takaichi bolster her weak political position at home and help her navigate Trump’s at times erratic decision-making that has wrong-footed other world leaders, analysts say.
While Takaichi has seen her public support jump since becoming prime minister, her coalition government is two votes short of a majority in parliament’s lower house.
“This is the perfect time for her to leverage her popular support to give her the political room she needs to make small concessions to solidify this relationship,” Davidson said.
(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and John Geddie; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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