President Trump on Tuesday welcomed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan for a multi-day “working meeting” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where the two leaders reaffirmed their shared diplomatic purposes ahead of President Trump’s upcoming meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
“Both Japan and the United States have been demonstrating leadership in applying the maximum pressure campaign against North Korea, which actually successfully made the North Korean side to start seeking dialogue with us,” Abe told reporters ahead of the bilateral meeting. “So it is fair to say that our approach has been proved to be successful and the right one.”
Trump added that the two leaders plan to discuss trade, a sensitive issue between the two countries. The White House is attempting to forge a bilateral trade deal with Japan while weighing the merits of reentering the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump tweeted last week that Japan “has hit us hard on trade for years.”
Before the press conference ended, Trump momentarily digressed to extol Mar-a-Lago as “the Southern White House.”
“Many of the world’s great leaders request to come to Mar-a-Lago and Palm Beach. They like it; I like it. We’re comfortable,” Trump said. We’re going to sneak out tomorrow morning and play a round of golf, if possible and if we have the time.”
One More Thing—One member of the president’s official delegation to the meeting was missing from Palm Beach: Vice President Mike Pence, who was in Washington Tuesday. A spokesperson for Pence says he will be traveling to Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday.
Things That Make You Go ‘Whoa’—From the Washington Post: “CIA Director Mike Pompeo made a top-secret visit to North Korea over Easter weekend as an envoy for President Trump to meet with that country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, according to two people with direct knowledge of the trip.”
President Trump’s top economic adviser on Tuesday tapped the brakes on the news that President Trump is considering reentering the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying that those discussions are still in the extremely early stages and nothing has yet been decided. “There’s nothing at all concrete. It’s too early to say. The president has asked me to give it another look, if you will,” Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, told reporters in South Florida. “I don’t want to say you’re barking up the wrong tree; you’re not. I’m just saying, at the moment, we are in the pre-preliminary stages of any discussion at all.”
President Trump stoked speculation about a potential TPP reentry last week when he tweeted that the United States would only rejoin “if the deal were substantially better than the deal offered to Pres. Obama.” Trump also noted that America was continuing to work on striking bilateral trade deals with each of the TPP member nations.
Some have speculated that Trump’s apparent reconsideration on TPP has been sparked by his desire to increase economic pressure on China, with whom the United States has been inching toward a trade war. But Kudlow pushed back against that idea Tuesday, saying that “our disagreements with China stand alone.”
“There’s trade disputes going on here that stand on their own regarding us and China,” Kudlow said. “The president has an ongoing discussion with some policy items on the agenda, as you know. That includes tariffs and it includes negotiation, and we will see how that does. But our trade disputes with China stand alone from TPP.”
Barbara Bush, RIP—The wife of one president and the mother of another, Barbara Bush died Tuesday at the age of 92. President Trump issued a proclamation ordering the American flag at all public places lowered to half mast in her honor.
“On this solemn day, we mourn the loss of Barbara Bush, an outstanding and memorable woman of character,” reads Trump’s proclamation. “As a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, military spouse, and former First Lady, Mrs. Bush was an advocate of the American family. Mrs. Bush lived a life that reminds us always to cherish our relationships with friends, family, and all acquaintances. In the spirit of the memory of Mrs. Bush, may we always remember to be kind to one another and to put the care of others first.”
The Least Popular Man in Washington—Fred Barnes writes in the cover story for this week’s issue about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the favorite target of just about everyone, left, right, and in the White House. But Sessions is hardly ineffective, Barnes writes:
Song of the Day— “Hell of a Season” by the Black Keys
