THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

________________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release April 18, 2018

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP

AND PRIME MINISTER ABE OF JAPAN

AT A DINNER RECEPTION

Mar-a-Lago

Palm Beach, Florida

7:41 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Its been a great honor to have the Prime Minister of Japan and his extraordinary wife with us tonight at Mar-a-Lago. We call this the Southern White House. It was originally built, as you probably have heard, as the Southern White House. And its turned out to be the Southern White House. So its really an honor.

Weve have had two very productive days on trade, on military, on North Korea. And we will continue, and we will also continue into the weeks ahead. And were coming up with what will be a very fair trade deal for both countries. And we look forward to it. Plus, we have some very big meetings, as we all know, on North Korea.

But, Mr. Prime Minister, I very much appreciate you being here. And we look forward to many, many years of great friendship. Thank you very much.

PRIME MINISTER ABE: (As interpreted.) So at the outset, Id like to return my appreciation for the gracious hospitality extended from Mr. President, as well as Madam First Lady, to myself as well as my wife.

So yesterday, I also enjoyed our company. We had a great dinner last night. But also, I'm very happy to be here again at this magnificent setting. And also, I do appreciate that you kindly extended your hospitality to my delegation as well tonight.

But to be honest with you, today, we also had the cheeseburger at the golf course. And on top of that, we had the working lunch. So we already had two lunches in the same day. (Laughter.) And now we are going to have our dinner.

So from yesterday and today, we had many opportunities to exchange our views in a very candid manner. And through the course of these discussions, we covered many issues, including North Korea, security, economy, as well as trade. So no doubt that I'm very confident that through my visit this time, we could forge stronger friendship between myself and Donald, and also how we could forge stronger relationship, as well as the alliance between Japan and the United States.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.

END 7:46 P.M. EDT


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