ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - US President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for an official visit to the United States on April 10, the White House said on Thursday.
The formal event, which includes a lavish state dinner and a policy meeting, follows a promise by Biden to host the closely allied nation key to the United States' strategy toward China, North Korea and other Asian security issues.
Biden and Kishida will discuss "efforts to strengthen our political, security, economic, and people-to-people ties" to improve Indo-Pacific security, said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
The visit comes at a challenging time for both leaders, who have low public approval ratings at home. Biden is likely facing a close-fought November election against Republican Donald Trump and Kishida is managing the fallout from a fundraising scandal, economic difficulty, and a major earthquake this month.
"2024 will be a pivotal year for Japan-US relations, with an official visit by Prime Minister Kishida taking place early in the year," said Japan's ambassador to Washington, Shigeo Yamada, in pre-recorded remarks to an event hosted by the Wilson Center think tank, said on Thursday.
Mieko Nakabayashi, a professor at Japan's Waseda University, told a Washington think tank event that factional rivalries inside Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party raised questions about whether Kishida could hold on to power long enough to make the visit.
She also said there was growing worry in Japan about the prospect of a second Trump presidency: "We are very, very worried, and we are thinking about a variety of scenarios of whatever whoever becomes the president of the United States."