Japan PM Takaichi to Forgo Foreign Trips This Summer

Tokyo, Aug. 10 (Jiji Press)–Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will refrain from making overseas trips this summer, except possibly to New York for a U.N. General Assembly session in late September, informed sources said Monday. Takaichi will stay at home to prioritize responses to a powerful earthquake that struck Kumamoto Prefecture in southwestern Japan last month. Many past prime ministers traveled abroad in July to September, or between the end of ordinary sessions of the Diet, or parliament, and the start of extraordinary Diet sessions, usually held in autumn. Among former prime ministers, Fumio Kishida visited the United States and Germany in July 2024 and South Korea that September, and Shigeru Ishiba, Takaichi’s immediate predecessor, traveled to South Korea in September 2025, aside from trips for attending U.N. General Assembly sessions. This year, a special session of the Diet, or parliament, was convened in place of the ordinary session because an election for the House of Representatives, the lower Diet chamber, was held in February. The special session ran until July 25, including an eight-day extension. The Kumamoto earthquake struck three days later, so Takaichi, who took office last October, will not travel abroad this summer, multiple government officials said. At Monday’s meeting of the government’s disaster response headquarters, the prime minister instructed her staff to move ahead with necessary relief measures proactively. Apart from the quake response efforts, the Takaichi administration plans to adopt a tax system reform package next month that would pave the way for realizing her goal of lowering the consumption tax rate on food. In addition, Takaichi is considering reshuffling her cabinet and the leadership team of her ruling Liberal Democratic Party in September. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]