After sumo, golf and dinner, Trump and Abe get down to business

May 27, 2019 | News On Japan

May 27, 2019 (Japan Today) - After a fun-filled weekend of golf, sumo, cheeseburgers and charcoal-grilled meat and vegetables, U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are set to hold formal talks Monday, with trade and tensions with North Korea topping the agenda.

The two "golf buddies" enjoyed a round at a course near Tokyo before Trump donned slippers to present the gargantuan President's Cup to the winning sumo wrestler on the final day of the summer basho or tournament.

But Monday sees the start of the more formal section of the four-day state visit as Trump becomes the first foreign leader to visit Japan's new emperor Naruhito, who took the Chrysanthemum Throne only three weeks ago, after his father's historic abdication.

Trump visits Naruhito in the morning, before an hour of talks with Abe, with the day culminating in a state banquet with the emperor.

The president has already set out his stall on the two main issues confronting the two allies: trade, and the mounting threat from North Korea in the wake of February's failed Hanoi summit between Trump and the North's leader Kim Jong Un.

Within an hour of touching down in Tokyo, Trump railed against what he sees as a trade imbalance between the world's top and third-largest economies and vowed the relationship would be "a little bit more fair" after a deal.

But very soon after stepping off the course, he said that "much" of that deal would wait until Abe faces upper house elections likely in July -- as rumors swirl that the popular prime minister will combine that vote with a snap general election.

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