WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama pushed for closer trade ties with Japan Tuesday, hosting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the White House for a pageant-filled state visit even as he fended off critics of liberalized international commerce within his own political party.
Obama welcomed Abe with full pomp and ceremony on a bright, dewy morning at the White House, calling the state visit a "celebration of the ties of friendship" and praising the alliance the U.S. and Japan have built over time.
Military honors and a gun salute greeted the Japanese leader in a South lawn arrival ceremony. A state dinner Tuesday evening with about 300 guests will cap Abe's day at the White House.
Setting the tone for the visit, Obama said: "The United States has renewed our leadership in the Asia Pacific. Prime Minister Abe is leading Japan to a new role on the world stage."
Abe, speaking in Japanese, said he and Obama have been working to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance since they first met two years ago.
"Now our bilateral relationship is more robust than ever," he said.
The visit aims to highlight the reconciliation between two nations once at war and to point the way toward expanded economic ties. The two countries are working toward a 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement that would further open vast Asian and Pacific rim markets to U.S. exports.
Obama faces stiff resistance to the trade deal from liberals and labor unions, political blocs that generally side with the president's economic policies.
While Obama and Abe won't be ready to announce a trade breakthrough, officials on both sides say they will likely declare they have made considerable progress in closing remaining gaps. The toughest sticking points are U.S. tariffs on Japanese pickup trucks and barriers in Japan on certain U.S. agricultural products.
Abe's visit comes on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and has already prompted demands that he use his trip to address the use of sex slaves by the Imperial Army during the war. The issue has been a major irritant with South Korea, which has demanded an apology from Abe.
Obama, who will play host to South Korean President Park Geun-hye later this year, has been thrust into the role of diplomatic broker between the two nations.
Last year in The Hague, Netherlands, Obama scored a small but significant coup by bringing together Park and Abe together for their first face-to-face meeting since they both took office more than a two years ago. Officials then said the discussions were focused on the security threat posed by North Korea, not on the source of Japan-South Korea friction.
On Monday, Japanese and U.S. foreign and defense ministers meeting in New York approved revisions to the U.S.-Japan defense guidelines. The new rules boost Japan's military capability amid growing Chinese assertiveness in disputed areas in the East and South China Sea claimed by Beijing. The changes, which strengthen Japan's role in missile defense, mine sweeping and ship inspections, are the first revisions in 18 years to the rules that govern U.S.-Japan defense cooperation.
Indeed, China's economic and military footprint serves as a major backdrop for Abe's visit.
Obama has undertaken an effort to rebalance the U.S. role in Asia and has argued time and again that without a trade agreement with Asian countries, China will step into the breach.
"If we don't write the rules, China will write the rules out in that region," Obama said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "We will be shut out — American businesses, American agriculture. That will mean a loss of U.S. jobs."
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