Trump Talks Military And Trade With Japan's Prime Minister.
WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. So among the five world leaders President Trump has spoken with today is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and it is clear that Trump is putting a lot of value in the U.S./Japan relationship. CNN's Will Ripley joins me now from Tokyo. So President Trump and Abe spoke for 45 minutes, I understand, and two major issues came up, trade and the military. Did they get into specifics as far as you know?</s>WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They certainly did talk for quite a long period of time, Fred, as you mentioned. Just as President Trump is putting a big priority on the Japan/United States alliance, it is the number one foreign policy objective for the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, to make sure that there is a good relationship with President Trump. Economically very important, trade huge, and of course, President Trump just walked away from a major trade deal that Abe and President Obama spent years negotiating, 12 nations in the Pacific Rim, excluding China from this trade deal. So Abe will try to convince President Trump to reconsider and they'll also talk about the possibility of negotiating a trade deal between Japan and the U.S. talking about things like car sales, very few American cars sold here in Japan, one thing that President Trump brought up during the phone call today. Also he is sending his defense secretary, James Mattis, to Japan this week. He'll be here in Tokyo. He's also going to South Korea. The military alliance, the threat for North Korea, increased assertiveness from China will be on their agenda when they have a meeting. They have agreed to meet two weeks from now on February 10th. And also Fred, interestingly, President Trump passed along a greeting from his daughter, Ivanka Trump, to the prime minister. Ivanka Trump very popular here in Japan, very highly regarded and she actually met the prime minister when he went into New York in November for that unofficial meeting at Trump Tower.