Donald Trump announces 2024 presidential bid despite Republican misgivings after US midterm polls but, it reverberates in Japan #Trump #World #UnitedStates #Japan #TJT #scmp

"But Trump also ridiculed advocates for fighting climate change and lavished praise on himself for meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and preventing the nuclear-armed country from launching long-range missiles, as well as killing Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and slapping tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports. 

“China, Russia, Iran and North Korea were in check,” he said. “They respected the United States, and quite honestly, they respected me.” 

On China, Trump has repeatedly touted his administration’s tough policies toward Beijing — moves that won praise in Tokyo, the U.S.’s top ally in Asia. Biden’s team has left those policies in place, and his administration has largely followed in his predecessor’s footsteps in terms of implementing robust measures to bolster competition, albeit minus Trump’s heated rhetoric.

“Japan appreciated Trump’s hard-line approach towards China but recognized that it was often undermined by chaotic leadership delinked from a sustained and systematic pressuring of Beijing,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor at International Christian University in Tokyo. 

Biden, he said, has offered less of the drama and much more of a systematic, sustained and sequential approach to heaping pressure on China.

Japan’s ability to muddle through four years of Trump’s often chaotic approach to governing, some observers have said, was largely due to the political savvy of then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was able to effectively manage Trump while assuaging deep misgivings in Japan about the mercurial leader’s intentions." 

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