Mr. Trump told the Japanese prime minister during a meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday that U.S.-Japan relations “will be stronger than ever before.” The president then hosted Ms. Takaichi as he addressed U.S. troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, docked at Japan’s Yokosuka Naval Base in Tokyo Bay.

Ms. Takaichi, who last week became Japan’s first female prime minister, said the bilateral partnership is entering “a golden era” and will become “the greatest alliance in the world.” Viewed as hawkish and conservative, she is the leading protégé of the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who struck up a close relationship with Mr. Trump during his first presidential term.  

Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from the region that the leaders of the two democracies, which are aligned against China, signed a framework agreement to cooperate on critical minerals, including rare earths. They also released details on Japan’s pledged investment of $550 billion in the U.S. The U.S.-Japan alliance features some 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan. As it pumps up defense spending, Japan is starting to take delivery of some 400 long-range Tomahawk missiles from Washington, a deal valued at $1.6 billion, as well as medium-range air-to-air missiles for its fleet of F-35 stealth jets.

The USS Gravely guided missile destroyer will be off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago near Venezuela through Thursday for joint military exercises with the Caribbean nation, according to the Pentagon, which says the 22nd U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit, a Marine Corps air-ground task force comprising about 2,300 personnel, is participating in the training.

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and its embarked air wing are also deploying to U.S. Southern Command, which covers Central and South America, the Caribbean, and the Panama Canal. The developments follow Mr. Trump’s recent assertion that he’s authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela and is weighing possible ground missions inside the country.

Mr. Trump accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of facilitating drug trafficking, and U.S.-Venezuela tensions are soaring over American military strikes targeting alleged drug cartel boats. The Maduro government has denounced the presence of the USS Gravely, calling it a “hostile provocation.” Venezuela also claims to have captured a mercenary group aligned with the CIA that officials there accused of preparing a false flag attack intended to provoke a full-scale confrontation.

China blasted American military activity in the region and gave a snarky offer to help rescue American personnel following Monday’s crash of a U.S. Navy helicopter and fighter jet in the South China Sea — incidents that occurred as Mr. Trump was arriving in the region ahead of a much anticipated meeting Thursday with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I need to stress that the U.S. aircraft crashed while conducting military drills in the South China Sea. The U.S. has been flexing muscles by frequently sending military vessels and aircraft to the South China Sea. This is the root cause of security issues at sea and disruption to regional peace and stability,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters in Beijing on Monday.

The U.S. military routinely operates in the region and has rejected Chinese sovereignty claims over international waters in the theater. Mr. Trump addressed the aircraft crashes while speaking to reporters on Air Force One, saying “bad fuel” may have been to blame. No further details on the cause have been disclosed.

A senior defense official at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, where the defense secretary stopped Monday en route to Asia, said the briefing included an overview of major threats emanating from the region, among them Chinese military and political activity and the tense military standoff on the Korean peninsula.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz, who is traveling with Mr. Hegseth, reports the official with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the CCP has scaled back military drills this year as a result of a nationwide campaign seeking greater political loyalty under Mr. Xi.

The unclassified briefing provided new details on the recent firings of nine Chinese military leaders who were expelled from the CCP prior to a recent Party meeting in Beijing last week. The senior official said the battle against corruption in the PLA emanates from Chinese leaders’ fears that the PLA is insufficiently under CCP control. Communist officials have declared that the CCP must “control the gun,” not the opposite.

China’s “reunification” slogan is a “hoax sustained by fear, ideology and deception,” Miles Yu, an opinion contributor to Threat Status, writes in The Times. “Taiwan is not a rebellious province but a living refutation of communist determinism, a society that chose freedom over fear.

“Not a single inch of Taiwan’s territory has ever been governed by the Chinese Communist Party. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Taiwan has remained entirely outside its control politically, legally and militarily,” writes Mr. Yu. director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute. “The claim of ‘reunification’ is therefore a deliberate falsehood: One cannot ‘reunify’ with what was never unified.”

Furthermore, he writes, Taiwan’s “sovereignty and independence are not byproducts of the Kuomintang-Communist struggle. Nor are they rooted in ethnolinguistic connections with China. To claim otherwise mirrors the logic of Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine: invoking shared language and history to justify invasion.”

• Oct. 28 — How America Failed to Disarm North Korea: Implications for the Future, Stimson Center

• Oct. 28 — Unpacking the CRINK Axis, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Oct. 29-30 — Accelerating Japan-U.S. Cooperation in Quantum Technologies, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Oct. 30 — How Long Can Russia’s Weakening Economy Support Putin’s War on Ukraine? Hudson Institute

• Oct. 31-Nov. 2 — IISS Manama Dialogue 2025, International Institute for Strategic Studies

• Nov. 3 — China’s Economic Priorities: The Fourth Plenum in Review, Brookings Institution

• Nov. 5 — Containment Redux: Persian Gulf War Lessons from Iraq for U.S. Strategy Toward Iran, Foundation for Defense of Democracies