US President Donald Trump arrived in the Japanese capital Tokyo on Monday as he continues his week-long tour of Asia.
Trump was welcomed at the Imperial Palace, where he took part in a courtesy call and visit with Japan's Emperor Naruhito.
He's set to meet with the country's newly sworn-in Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who is banking on striking a personal friendship with the US leader to ease trade tensions and turn a page on US-Japan relations.
Takaichi, who assumed office last week, has already extended a gesture of friendship, offering to buy a fleet of Ford F-150 trucks for official use, despite the impracticalities such a vehicle could pose given Tokyo's, and other Japanese cities', many narrow streets.
Trump instantly bought into the idea of Ford trucks, telling reporters aboard Air Force One, "she has good taste."
"That's a hot truck," he added.
It's an early diplomatic test for Takaichi, the first woman to lead Japan, who has a tenuous coalition backing her.
Trump, who departed Malaysia, the first stop of his tour, on Monday, was full of praise for the new Japanese premier, who noted that he has a feeling he'll get along "great" with her, due to her relations with Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in 2022.
Trump enjoyed good relations with Abe during his first term in office and often described the slain Japanese leader as a "close friend."
"I look forward to meeting the new prime minister. I hear phenomenal things. She was a great ally and friend of Shinzo Abe, who is my friend, former prime minister, and he was great," Trump said.
"I know they were very close and I think philosophically they were close, which is good. It's going to be very good, that's going to help Japan and the United States. I think she's going to be great."
The two have already spoke on the phone while Trump was mid-flight on Saturday en route from Washington to Malaysia.
Takaichi stressed her status as a protege of the late prime minister and said she praised Trump for brokering the Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect on 10 October, ending more than two years of Israeli assaults on the enclave, which have killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to local health sources.
"I thought (Trump) is a very cheerful and fun person," she said. "He well recognises me and said he remembers me as a politician whom (former) Prime Minister Abe really cared about," she said.
"And I told the president that I extremely look forward to welcoming him in Tokyo."
Beneath the hospitality is the search for a strategy to navigate the increasingly complex trade relationship that Trump shook up earlier this year with tariffs. Trump wants Asian allies to buy more US goods and also make financial commitments to build factories and energy infrastructure in his country.
The meetings in Japan come before Trump's highly anticipated sit-down with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday.
Earlier, Trump was in Malaysia to broker a ceasefire deal between Thailand and Cambodia who've been gripped in a months-long border dispute. The deal was signed in Kuala Lumpur in what Trump boasted was the eighth "war" his administration has "solved."
He also participated in the ASEAN summit in the Malaysian capital, where he met with leaders of regional allies.
His upcoming trip to Seoul will conclude his first tour of Asia, as the world looks on to see if his talks with Xi could offer a breakthrough and end months of trade disagreements between the world's two biggest economies, which have rattled global markets.
