U.S. President Donald Trump was en route to Japan on Saturday after a stopover in Hawaii, where he paid a solemn visit to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, the site of the surprise Japanese naval attack in 1941 that plunged the U.S. into World War II.
Before departing for Japan, his first stop on a multination tour of Asia, Trump visited his Trump International Hotel in Waikiki, where he spoke with some employees in the lobby.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Trump "wanted to say hello and thank you to the employees for all their hard work."
Trump said he had wanted to spend another day in Hawaii at the end of what he called this "very important trip," but canceled that plan to stay longer in the Philippines at the end of his trip to attend the East Asia Summit, in addition to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meeting.
Between Japan and the Philippines, Trump will visit South Korea, China and Vietnam. The 13-day trip will be the longest of his presidency.
After arriving at Yakota Air Base in Japan, Trump will join Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday for a round of golf. They played together in February at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, before meetings aimed at strengthening the U.S.-Japanese alliance.
Abe's political fortunes were bolstered recently after winning a supermajority in a snap parliamentary election, and he has promised to amend Japan's pacifist constitution.
In Trump's meetings with other Asian leaders, the president is expected to tell them the world is "running out of time" to stop North Korea's nuclear warhead and ballistic missile development, which U.S. administration officials deem to be the biggest threat currently faced.
"The discussions will be around mainly what more we can do now to resolve this, short of war, recognizing that all of us are running out of time," according to national security adviser H.R. McMaster. "The United States, South Korea, Japan, China are running out of time on this."
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