{"id":19492,"date":"2025-10-28T04:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T04:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/19492\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T04:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T04:35:08","slug":"japan-pm-sanae-takaichi-donates-250-cherry-trees-fireworks-to-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/19492\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan PM Sanae Takaichi donates 250 cherry trees, fireworks to DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOKYO \u2014 Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will donate 250 flowering cherry trees and July 4th fireworks to Washington, DC, after she and President Trump tuned into the World Series game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Takaichi, who became Japan\u2019s first female prime minister<\/a> seven days ago, emphasized the nations\u2019 common love of baseball and her country\u2019s historic gift of cherry trees to DC as the leaders began their official dialogue Tuesday, which is expected to focus behind closed doors on military and trade policies.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is gifting cherry trees and July 4th fireworks to DC. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the press corps, I\u2019m very sorry that we kept you waiting. As a matter of fact, Mr. President and I just enjoyed watching the Major League Baseball match,\u201d Takaichi opened her official greeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cActually, Dodgers versus Blue Jays, and the Dodgers are now having a one-point lead, and we really enjoyed the match.\u201d<\/p>\n

Takaichi, a conservative prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said that the cherry trees would be gifted in recognition of the United States\u2019 250th anniversary next year and would bolster a new \u201cgolden age\u201d of US-Japan relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have a magnificent celebration, we will extend a gift of 250 cherry trees to Washington, DC. In addition, I understand that fireworks from Japan, from Akita Prefecture, will be shown in Washington, DC, on July 4 next year,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Japan first gave cherry trees to Washington in 1912. AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Takaichi said that Japanese fireworks will be used for Independence Day next year \u2014 America\u2019s semiquincentennial. Polaris<\/p>\n

Japan in 1912 gifted over 3,000 cherry trees during President Howard Taft\u2019s tenure \u2014 a fact celebrated every spring at Washington\u2019s heavily attended Cherry Blossom Festival. <\/p>\n

Trump is in the midst of a dramatic refresh of the capital city, including the addition of a massive White House ballroom <\/a>and the planning of a possible 250th anniversary triumphal arch<\/a> across from the Lincoln Memorial.<\/p>\n

Trump and Takaichi watched a World Series match on TV before addressing the press. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Takaichi became Japan\u2019s first female prime minister last week. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve received your orders for a very large amount of new military equipment. And you know that we make the best military equipment in the world,\u201d said Trump, who will deliver a speech later in the day aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier near the mouth of Tokyo Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate that order, and we very much appreciate the trade. We\u2019re going to do tremendous trade together, I think, more than ever before. We\u2019re just signing a new deal, and it\u2019s a very fair deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump in July reached a new trade pact with Japan<\/a>, lowering his threatened 25% \u201creciprocal\u201d tariff to 15% in exchange for pledges of $550 billion in Japanese investments in the US, in addition to Tokyo reducing barriers to imports of US vehicles and agricultural products.<\/p>\n

Japanese cars also face a 15% tariff under that deal, lower than the 25% rate Trump applied to most other countries.<\/p>\n

Trump vowed to deepen trade and military ties with Tokyo. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Trump will conclude his three-nation tour with a trip to South Korea. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The White House has not teased any looming reforms to the Japan trade deal this week \u2014 and the two leaders signed a brief document reaffirming the \u201cGREAT DEAL\u201d reached in July.<\/p>\n

Takaichi and Trump also signed a document pledging to cooperate to boost investments and develop policies to secure rare-earth and critical minerals against \u201cnon-market policies and unfair trade practices\u201d from China \u2014 after Trump recently signed similar documents\u00a0with Australia<\/a>, Malaysia and Thailand.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s three-nation tour of the region is focused heavily on making economic deals. <\/p>\n

During his first stop in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, he signed agreements to lower tariffs<\/a> on certain goods from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in exchange for pledges of billions of dollars in purchases of US airplanes, natural gas and agricultural goods such as soybeans and corn.<\/p>\n

Trump will return to the US after visiting South Korea on Wednesday and Thursday, where he hopes to announce a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping<\/a> that will address Beijing\u2019s new export restrictions on products made with rare-earth and critical minerals, as well as Chinese fentanyl smuggling and steps to revive soybean purchases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOKYO \u2014 Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will donate 250 flowering cherry trees and July 4th fireworks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,8406,825,9,11,10,87,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-19492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-fireworks","10":"tag-japan","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}