Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe opened up a trip to the US to meet President Barack Obama amid regional diplomatic tensions and domestic economic inconvenience.

Recently Prime minister Abe left Tokyo on his way to meet President Obama and arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C.

Japan is currently crumbling by an ailing economy measured in terms of consistent deflation from the past 20 years, a territorial dispute with China and being disturbed by North Korean missile mission that automatically placed Japan under its axis.

PM Abe said after his White House visit at a Washington think tank, that “they (North Korea) have increased the range of their missile immensely and have attained the ability to reach even the mainland United States.”

Japan has been jammed into a dispute with China over sovereignty of islands located in the East China Sea and lost sleep over the situation as North Korean missile strength has expanded too dramatically.

Over the years, the North Korean missile program expansion became a major problem, terrifying its neighbours. During the picture session at the Oval Office with President Obama, PM Abe said, “We just cannot tolerate the actions of North Korea, such as launching missiles and conducting nuclear tests.”

President Obama’s Asia advisor, Danny Russel, said that the president “remains supportive of the peaceful efforts to diplomatic resolution to outstanding issues of territorial claims,” BBC reports.

The Japanese economy is the third largest in the world, but its currency is persistently declining in value against the US dollar.

Abe proposes to help set off the otherwise grounded economy with the help of Monetarist and Keynesian tools that may support growth in future. According to the BBC news, PM Abe has outlined two plans to revitalize the weak economy: firstly to print a lot of money and secondly to spend a lot of money. Plan A can be categorized under Monetarism and plan B is from the Keynesian School of Thought.

According to Keynesian economic thought, if the pace of economic activity is slow with falling investment rates and fading employment combined with decreasing consumer spending, then the only thing that can restart economy is public intervention through spending.

On the other hand, Monetarist believe that it is the supply of money that makes the economy move back and forth and not government spending. However, if both of these schools of thought can bring life to Japanese economy, then there may be a possibility of progress.

According to the BBC News, in an interview with the Washington Post, Abe said that improving ties with the US were at the top of his agenda and that their support is key. Both leaders are expected to discuss Trans-Pacific Partnership (Free Trade Agreement between North American, South American and Asian nations) among other issues during his visit.

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About the author

Muhammed Faraaz
Post-graduate in Economics from India, unfolding complexities and policies. Proponent of Classical Economics.