Ishiba plays catch-up with Trump

After Abe Akie goes to Florida, the prime minister may get his own meeting -- but it doesn't look like a win

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After Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s bid to stop at Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump following the G20 summit in Brazil was brushed off – the reason, according to Japanese government sources, being the Trump camp’s interest in respecting the Logan Act, a reason that subsequently proved to be laughably absurd – the Japanese government has been considering how to find its footing with the incoming administration. The Ishiba government even suggested that since there were no particularly difficult bilateral issues between the US and Japan, there was no urgency in arranging a meeting between Ishiba and Trump.

However, after Abe Akie, widow of the late Abe Shinzō, joined the president-elect and his wife Melania for a meatloaf dinner at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, 15 December – and returned home with a present (a book, apparently) for Ishiba as well as a public message from Trump (“of course I’d like to meet the prime minister,” albeit “if the Japanese government wants it”) — the mood has changed. Now, the prime minister is now moving ahead with preparations for a meeting with the president-elect in January, perhaps shortly before he is inaugurated on 20 January.