U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Japan, South Korea and China this month showcased his foreign policy driven primarily by the pursuit of America's interest first, unlike those of his predecessors who used similar occasions to reaffirm America's commitment to upholding fundamental values, such as democracy, freedom of speech and human rights in the Asia-Pacific region.
Throughout his 12-day, five-nation trip that also took him to Vietnam and the Philippines, where he attended regional summits, Trump repeated his pleas for his hosts to work toward rectifying their countries' chronic trade imbalances with the United States and build instead what he called a "fair, free and reciprocal trade relationship." He managed to extract commitments from two of America's most important allies in Northeast Asia — Japan and South Korea — to purchase military equipment worth billions of dollars to counter the increasing threat from North Korea, another major theme of discussion throughout his trip.
"It's a lot of jobs for us and a lot of safety for Japan," Trump told a joint news conference with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo. He repeated the same phrase with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that Seoul's decision to buy billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment would mean "jobs, it means reducing our trade deficit with South Korea."
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