Biden lauds US-Japan alliance at state dinner

By Sam Fossum, Arlette Saenz, Kayla Tausche, Betsy Klein and Michael Williams, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden celebrated the relationship between the US and Japan, calling the alliance “stronger than it’s ever been” as he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a state visit Wednesday.

Speaking at a swanky state dinner Wednesday night, Biden said the US and Japan would continue to be partners amid a changing world, reinforcing his commitment to bolstering vital partnerships in the Indo-Pacific amid a militarily and economically resurgent China.

“We’ve been brought together the same hopes, the same values, the same commitment to democracy and freedom and to dignity, dignity for all. And today without question, our alliance is literally stronger than it has ever been,” Biden said during the dinner.

Biden said that “we stand at an inflection point” and that the US and Japan will continue to stand together.

“Tonight, we pledge to keep going. We stand at an inflection point where the decisions we make now are going to determine the course of the future for decades to come,” Biden added.

Japan has been at the center of Biden’s alliance building in the Indo-Pacific as officials have seen a willing partner in Kishida, who has significantly shifted the country’s defense posture in recent years and provided ongoing support to Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That led to a day of feel-good appearances and announcements between the two men in the administration’s fifth state visit.

Over 70 items covering a wide array of critical sectors were announced as part of the bilateral meeting between Biden and Kishida. They included a commitment to changing the US force structure in Japan to improve how Japanese and US forces are integrated, establish a “military industrial council” to evaluate where the two countries can co-produce defense weapons to improve cooperation, and items related to integrating anti-missile defense between the US, Australia and Japan.

The announcements are all part of a major update to the nations’ military alliance but elements of them will take some time to implement – including the change to US force structure, which will take several months for both countries to work through, one senior official noted.

Speaking on the White House South Lawn Wednesday morning, Biden heralded the “monumental alliance between our two great democracies.”

“Together, we made it closer, stronger and more effective than ever before in history,” Biden said at an official arrival ceremony.

He also recognized Japan’s gift of 3,000 cherry trees more than 100 years ago as a symbol of that alliance, blooming each spring in Washington, DC. Japan has committed to plant 250 new trees along the Tidal Basin to honor the US’s 250th birthday in 2026.

Biden acknowledged the “devastating” history between the US and Japan. He traveled to Hiroshima last year for a summit with G7 leaders and toured the Hiroshima Peace Museum, which chronicles the vast destruction of the US atomic bomb in the city in 1945 in the closing days of World War II.

It would have been easy for the two countries to remain adversaries given their bloody history, Biden noted.

“Instead,” he said, “we made a far better choice: We became the closest of friends.”

Today, Biden added, “Our democracies are beacons of freedom shining across the globe.”

The leaders detailed new space collaboration at a time when Japan has signaled interest in landing its first astronaut on the Moon and to lay out ways to increase people-to-people ties amid lagging student exchanges between the two countries in recent years. The astronaut would be the first non-American to set foot on the moon.

Some of these partnerships include a joint artificial intelligence research initiative between Carnegie Mellon University and Keio University in Tokyo, as well as another AI-related exchange between the University of Washington and Washington State and Tsukuba University in Japan, according to the officials. This will also include creating a scholarship to fund high school students from the US to travel to Japan to study and vice versa.

But even as the US and Japan are bolstering their cooperation across a range of sectors, the two countries have seen a recent difference on the economic front with the president opposing Japan’s efforts to purchase US Steel.

Responding during a joint news conference to a question about the acquisition of the company – at one point one of the most powerful companies in the world – by Japan-based Nippon Steel, Kishida described the $14.1 billion acquisition as an “investment” in the United States.

“We hope these discussions will unfold in directions that would be positive for both sides,” Kishida said. He did not directly address whether the two leaders discussed the acquisition during a private meeting held earlier in the day.

Biden, who previously said it was “vital” the company remains American-owned and operated, said during the press conference – the first he’s held in 2024 – that he stands by “my commitment to American workers.”

The meeting between Biden and Kishida will be followed later this week by the first-ever leaders’ summit between the US, Japan and the Philippines with Biden working to draw Pacific allies and partners closer as the region grapples with China’s aggression and nuclear provocations from North Korea.

Kishida said during the news conference that Japan will continue call on China to “fulfill its responsibilities as a major power,” while also striving to establish a “constructive and stable” relationship with the superpower.

“We confirmed that unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion is absolutely unacceptable wherever it may be,” he added.

All of the deliverables on the agenda are part of a concerted military, diplomatic and strategic effort to try and “flip the script” and counter Chinese efforts to isolate American allies like the Philippines and Japan, according to one senior administration official.

“The idea of switching to a multilateral, lattice-like strategic architecture is to flip the script and isolate China,” this person said.

Cherry blossom diplomacy

Even as the leaders plan to announce the lengthy list of defense and diplomatic agreements during the course of their visit, senior administration officials also sought to highlight a more symbolic takeaway.

The National Park Service has said around 150 cherry trees will be chopped down later this spring to make way for higher seawalls around the basin. Japan first donated trees to Washington in the early 20th century.

A senior Biden administration official called the original gift of cherry trees from Japan one of the most important diplomatic gifts in US history – second only to the Statue of Liberty, a present from France.

“I think you’ll find that it’s initiatives like this, that may not be as significant apparently as new arrangements on military command structures or joint co-production on the military side, but they’re deeply significant to our peoples,” an official said.

Even as Biden hails the alliance with Japan on Wednesday, officials acknowledged the concern among American allies at the prospect of a potential return of Donald Trump to the Oval Office, and what that could portend for US foreign relations.

“I think we all recognize that there is anxiety in capitals, uncertainty, about what the nature of the future of US policy will look like,” the official said. “Whether we will remain as engaged in internationalist pursuits and the kinds of bipartisan foreign policy efforts which have animated the last period after the Second World War and after the Cold War. There are questions and concerns there.”

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Samantha Waldenberg contributed to this report.

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