Imperial Hotel Osaka
Osaka, Japan
8:00 P.M. JST
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Hello everybody. I hope you all had a nice flight — those that came with me. (Laughter.) It’s very nice to have dinner.
And, really, I want to congratulate the Prime Minister on a tremendous victory. He had a fantastic victory, as you know. He didn’t surprise me, but he surprised a lot of other people. See, I knew him, so I said, “He’s going to do very well.” And he did. He did. They called it an upset, but I don’t call it an upset. You probably didn’t. Your wife didn’t call it an upset. (Laughter.) But I want to congratulate you very much. It’s a fantastic thing you did.
PRIME MINISTER MORRISON: Well, thank you, Mr. President. And thanks for hosting us here tonight. It’s going to be an important few days. But there’s no better or stronger or deeper relationship than the United States and Australia.
As you said, we’ve been together for a very long time — 100 years — as our ambassadors have been involved in that program in the United States of fighting together but working together. And the achievements speak for themselves.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s exactly right.
Q Mr. President, are you coming to Melbourne for the President’s Cup Golf?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’ll tell you what: I’d like to. (Laughter.)
PRIME MINISTER MORRISON: There’s a warm invitation. It’s standing.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: It might not be easy, but I’d like to. (Laughter.) That’s a big deal. That’s going to be great. That’s going to be great.
Q Mr. President, you talk about “America first” a lot. Do you recognize that, for many of your allies, sometimes it’s seen as “America alone” because it has adverse impacts on countries like Japan and Australia — like on trade, for example?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, well, I think I can say very easily that we’ve been very good to our allies. We work with our allies. We take care of our allies. Generally speaking, I’ve inherited massive trade deficits with our allies. And we even help our allies militarily.
So we do look at ourselves, and we look at ourselves, I think, more positively than ever before. But we also look at our allies. And I think Australia is a good example. We’ve worked together very closely – – just recently, on a big trade situation. We had a little bit of a trade deal going, and it worked out very well for both of us.
And I think especially when it comes to those great allies, and Australia would be right there. We’re very proud of it. It’s one of our oldest and one of our best. We were just talking about the battles that we fought together. These are big-name battles, and they were tough battles, and we won every one of them.
So, it’s great to be with you.
PRIME MINISTER MORRISON: Thank you very much.
END 8:02 P.M. JST
