Tokyo • All the pomp and pageantry in the world couldn’t paper over the tensions between President Donald Trump and Japan’s Shinzo Abe on two of their most pressing issues: North Korea and trade.
The president and prime minister tried mightily to minimize their differences during Trump’s four-day state visit to Tokyo, while playing up their close personal friendship and their countries’ long-held ties. But tension abounded, with Trump on Monday brushing off the significance of North Korean short-range missile tests that have rattled Japan and reasserting his threats to hit Abe with potentially devastating auto import tariffs.