Trump begins his Asia tour in Japan with a speech, golf, hamburgers, and matching hats

President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe golfing in Japan

(Image credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images)

last updated 5 November 2017

President Trump arrived in Japan Saturday night after a stop in Hawaii, beginning his 12-day diplomatic tour of Asia. Trump's first event Sunday was a speech at the joint U.S.-Japanese Yokota air base near Tokyo, where he told the assembled "brave warriors" they are "the greatest threat to tyrants and dictators who seek to prey on the innocent."

The president then joined Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a country club to have hamburgers, play a round of golf, talk about North Korea, and sign matching baseball caps reading, "Donald and Shinzo: Make Alliance Even Greater." Abe reported they were able to "carry out in-depth discussion, at times touching on various difficult issues," and Trump said he doesn't believe the United States has "ever been closer to Japan than we are right now."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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