Japan and the U.S. are arranging a summit between Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Joe Biden for April 10, close sources said Thursday.
Kishida was planning to visit the U.S. as a state guest in early March, but the date was pushed back due to Biden’s State of the Union address to Congress being scheduled for March 7, sources said. Biden extended the original invitation to Kishida in November.
At the summit, Kishida is expected to call for strengthening cooperation in the fields of defense, economic security, outer space and cybersecurity, according to the sources. He is also likely to give an address to the U.S. Congress.
During the trip, Kishida may visit other U.S. cities in addition to Washington, the sources added.
Kishida will be the first Japanese leader to visit the United States as a state guest since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2015, during the administration of President Barack Obama.
The State of the Union address will be an opportunity for the Democratic president to garner public support in his bid for reelection in November, possibly in a rematch against his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
The sources also said “Super Tuesday” on March 5 — when many U.S. states hold their presidential primary contests — and Japan’s parliamentary deliberations on a draft budget for the next fiscal year were also factors in pushing the U.S.-Japan summit back to April.
Kishida said he was invited by Biden to visit the United States in “early 2024” during their bilateral talks last November in San Francisco on the sidelines of an annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.