Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is in Canada Thursday for talks with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Kishida is on a tour of Group of Seven, or G-7, leading industrialized countries as Japan assumes the rotating presidency of the group.
A statement from Trudeau’s office said the two leaders will discuss Japan’s priorities for its G-7 presidency as well as further strengthening bilateral trade between the two countries.
Kishida arrived in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, after a visit to London Wednesday, where he and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signed a defense agreement, which will allow the countries to deploy forces on each other's soil, the latest move toward closer security ties.
The Japanese prime minster is also set to travel to Washington for talks with President Joe Biden Friday at the White House.
Ahead of that meeting, Japanese defense and foreign ministers met with their U.S. counterparts in Washington, where they announced an agreement to step up security cooperation in the face of shared worries about China.
At a joint news conference Wednesday with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken applauded Japan’s recent pledge to double its defense spending by 2027. He said Japan’s new strategies, their identified challenges and how they plan to address them, align closely with U.S. strategies.
Blinken also announced that during Kishida’s visit Friday, he will sign an agreement regarding U.S.-Japan cooperation in space. He said the agreement “has been a decade in the making and it covers everything from joint research to working together to land the first woman and person of color on the moon.”
Defense Secretary Austin is scheduled to hold another meeting with Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada Thursday at the Pentagon to discuss the new security cooperation agreement.
As part of his G-7 tour, Kishida has also visited France and Italy.
Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
