Remarks: Donald Trump Holds a Bilateral Meeting with Sanae Takaichi of Japan - September 22, 2026

[Video begins in progress]

[In progress] -- very highly respected prime minister of Japan. She's done a great job. Her numbers, I watch her numbers all the time, and the industry in Japan is doing very well. The country is doing very well, very big improvement. And it's an honor to be with her. She's a friend of mine. We got to know each other very well over the last period of time, and she's going to be a great prime minister.

She's going to go down as one of the great prime ministers. And to have your same representative, some of them that I know very well over the years, right? They're tough and they're smart and it's an honor to be with you. Thank you very much.

[Sanae Taikichi is speaking in Japanese prior to translation when Donald Trump interjected.]

Boy, does she speak fast. That's incredible. Great job. Very impressed. Please.

[Via interpreter] I would like to start off by reiterating my gratitude for Donald's very, very powerful commitment to the Japan-US alliance against the backdrop of increasingly severe security environment, including Asian security environment in recent years. I would like to seize this opportunity to demonstrate to the world how robust our alliance is through holding another round of meeting with Donald today here at this venue, UN headquarters.

[Via interpreter] As you may know, most recently I made a bold decision to have the cabinet reshuffle. In total, we have 18 ministers, but out of 18, I decided to have 10 new ministers on board.

[Via interpreter] But please be assured about our situation. I made an intentional decision to keep Foreign Minister Motegi, Finance Minister Katayama, [Inaudible] Minister Akazawa, as well as Defense Minister Koizumi. All of them are the counterparts of your great cabinet secretaries.

[Via interpreter] So it is fair to say that we can expect this person-to-person counterpart relationship being a driver to promote policy coordination. And by doing so, I look forward to deepening our alliance between the two countries.

[Via interpreter] And as a matter of fact, thanks to Donald's leadership and also my own leadership, our bilateral economic security cooperation in areas such as AI, semiconductor and critical minerals has been steadily advancing.

[Via interpreter] So on this occasion I would like to cover a lot of agenda items. So why not we ask the press corps to leave the room and so that [Inaudible] discussion.

Well, you heard her.

[Via interpreter] Thank you, all.