TOKYO — US President Donald J. Trump lavished praise on Japan’s first female leader Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo on Tuesday, welcoming her pledge to accelerate a military buildup and signing deals on trade and rare earths.

Ms. Takaichi, a protegee of Mr. Trump’s late friend and golfing buddy Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, applauded the President’s push to resolve global conflicts and said she would nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to Mr. Trump’s spokesperson.

Japan is also expected to offer a package of US investments under a $550-billion deal agreed this year, including shipbuilding, and pledge purchases of US soybeans, gas and pickup trucks, sources familiar with the talks said.

Those gestures may temper any Mr. Trump demands for Tokyo to spend more towards its security in the face of an increasingly assertive China, which Ms. Takaichi sought to head off by promising to fast-track plans to increase defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product.

“Everything I know from Shinzo and others, you will be one of the great prime ministers. I’d also like to congratulate you on being the first woman prime minister. It’s a big deal,” Mr. Trump told Ms. Takaichi as the pair sat down for discussions with their delegations at Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace.

TAKAICHI INVOKES ABE LEGACY
Ms. Takaichi repeatedly referenced Mr. Abe’s affection for Mr. Trump and gifted him his putter enclosed in a glass case, a golf bag signed by Japanese major winner Hideki Matsuyama and a gold-leaf golf ball, according to photos posted on X by Mr. Trump’s assistant Margo Martin.

Mr. Abe, who was assassinated in 2022, was the first foreign leader to meet Mr. Trump after his 2016 election victory and the pair went on to forge a close bond over several rounds of golf in the United States and Japan.

Over a lunch of US rice and beef, and vegetables from Ms. Takaichi’s hometown of Nara, the Japanese leader presented Mr. Trump with a map of major investments Japanese firms have made in the United States since his last visit in 2009.

At least 10 Japanese companies are eyeing more than $400 billion of US investments in areas such as energy and artificial intelligence, which the two governments are set to announce later on Tuesday, public broadcaster NHK reported.

DEAL ON CRITICAL MINERALS SIGNED
Mr. Trump also praised Japan’s efforts to purchase more US defense equipment, while Ms. Takaichi said Mr. Trump’s role in securing ceasefires between Cambodia and Thailand, and Israel and Palestinian militants, were “unprecedented” achievements.

The leaders then signed an agreement to support the supply of critical minerals and rare earths, as the countries seek to wean reliance off China’s chokehold on the materials crucial for a wide range of products from smartphones to fighter jets.

The deal aims to jointly identify projects of interest in areas such as magnets and batteries over the next six months and work together to develop stockpiles of key minerals among other measures.

After lunch, Mr. Trump met with relatives of people abducted by North Korea in the 1960s and 1970s to train its spies and their relatives. While some were later repatriated, Japan continues to press Pyongyang for a full accounting of all the abductees and the return of any who remain alive, a cause championed by Mr. Abe.

“The United States is with them all the way,” Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly said he is open to meeting North Korea’s reclusive leader Kim Jong Un during his Asia visit, told reporters after greeting the families.

The US leader began his five-day visit to Asia in Malaysia on Sunday before traveling to Japan late on Monday and heading straight to the Imperial Palace for a meeting with Japanese Emperor Naruhito.

He hopes to cap off his trip, his longest overseas journey since returning to the White House in January, by agreeing a trade war truce with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday.

VISIT US NAVAL BASE
Ms. Takaichi’s efforts to invoke Mr. Abe’s legacy to forge a bond with Mr. Trump could help bolster her weak political position at home and help her navigate Mr. Trump’s at times erratic decision-making, analysts said.

Though she has seen a surge in public support since becoming prime minister, her coalition government is two votes shy of a majority in parliament’s lower house.

Mr. Trump and Ms. Takaichi will later visit the US naval base in Yokosuka near Tokyo, which is home to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, part of the US military’s powerful presence in the region.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is due to hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi on Wednesday.

Mr. Trump will meet business leaders in Tokyo later on Tuesday, before traveling on Wednesday to South Korea where he will meet President Lee Jae Myung ahead of his Thursday summit with Mr. Xi. — Reuters

TAIPEI — Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said on Tuesday that he was not worried that US President Donald J. Trump would “abandon” the island at his upcoming meeting this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

Since taking office earlier this year, Mr. Trump has vacillated on his position towards China-claimed Taiwan as he seeks to strike a trade deal with Beijing. Mr. Trump says Mr. Xi has told him he will not invade while the Republican leader is in office but is also yet to approve any new US arms sales to Taipei.

The fear in Taipei, which has long enjoyed strong unofficial support from Washington, is that the Trump-Xi meeting this week in South Korea on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit could see some sort of “selling out” of Taiwan’s interests by Mr. Trump to Mr. Xi.

Asked whether he was worried Mr. Trump would “abandon” Taiwan at the Xi talks, Mr. Lin told reporters in Taipei: “No, because our Taiwan-US relations are very stable.”

“No matter whether on security, trade and business and other areas, there is close cooperation,” he added.

The United States, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with China, but is bound by law to provide the island with the means to defend itself, and the issue is a frequent irritant in Sino-US relations.

APEC FORUM
The APEC forum is one of the few international groupings that Taiwan takes part in, though it does not send its president to avoid political problems with China.

Speaking at the airport before leaving for South Korea, Taiwan’s APEC representative, former economy minister Lin Hsin-i, said the summit was a good opportunity for “equal interactions” with other members attending.

China has offered a “one country, two systems” model of autonomy to Taiwan, which all major parties in Taiwan have rejected. In the past five years, Beijing has ramped up military and diplomatic pressure against Taiwan, including regularly sending warplanes and warships into the skies and waters near the island.

In a Tuesday commentary, China’s official Xinhua news agency lambasted “separatists” but said the “situation will only become increasingly favorable for the just cause of supporting reunification.”

Both sides can sit down and negotiate a “reasonable ‘one country, two systems’ solution” for Taiwan, which will respect Taiwan’s existing social system, it added.

Taiwan’s government says Beijing has no right to claim or speak for the island internationally, and that only the Taiwanese people can decide their own future.

Also on Tuesday, police in the Chinese city of Chongqing said they had opened a probe into Taiwanese lawmaker Puma Shen, from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, for engaging in “separatist” activity, though China’s legal system has no jurisdiction in Taiwan.

Mr. Shen said he believed this was the fifth or sixth time China had sanctioned him, but this time it was raising the possibility of making “arrests extraterritorially in the future.”

“This intimidation tactic and lawfare approach represents China’s current overt strategy against Taiwan. This is not targeting me personally — it’s meant as a warning to others,” he said in a statement. — Reuters

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin asked North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui during talks in the Kremlin on Monday to tell her country’s leader Kim Jong Un that everything was “going to plan” in bilateral relations.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim sealed a strategic partnership treaty last year, which included a mutual defense pact, and North Korea has sent soldiers, artillery ammunition and missiles to Russia to support Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

“We talked in detail in Beijing about our relations and prospects for development,” Mr. Putin told Ms. Choe, referring to talks the Russian leader held with Mr. Kim during celebrations in the Chinese capital last month to mark the 80^th anniversary of the end of World War II in Asia.

“Everything is going according to plan. Please convey my best wishes to him (Kim),” Mr. Putin said.

Ukraine and South Korea estimate that North Korea deployed more than 10,000 troops to the war in Ukraine in return for economic and military technology assistance from Russia. South Korea’s intelligence agency estimated in September that about 2,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed in the fighting.

Ms. Choe also held discussions in Moscow on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on bilateral relations and regional dynamics in Asia.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, both ministers agreed that rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia stem from the “aggressive actions of the United States and its allies.” — Reuters