WASHINGTON: US president-elect Donald Trump hosted Akie Abe, the widow of slain former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for a private dinner with his wife Melania Trump at their Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Sunday.
Trump and Abe, 62, had met during his first term as president, during which time her husband had pursued a close relationship with him.
“It was a privilege to host Mrs. Akie Abe at Mar-a-Lago once again,” Melania Trump said in a post on the social network X.
“We fondly remembered her late husband, former Prime Minister Abe, and honored his remarkable legacy.”
The post included a photo showing Abe standing between Melania and her husband, with the president-elect doing his characteristic thumbs-up pose.
Trump’s meeting with Abe, whose husband was assassinated in 2022, took place before he could meet with Japan’s current prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, despite her holding no political office.
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The daughter of a wealthy Japanese family, she married Shinzo Abe in 1987 and rose to prominence during his terms as prime minister of Japan, first from 2006 to 2007, and then again from 2012 to 2020.
As Japan’s longest-serving premier, Abe became one of the country’s most recognizable political figures, known for cultivating international alliances and his “Abenomics” economic strategy. He was shot and killed while speaking at a political campaign rally in Nara on July 8, 2022.
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