Executives' Comments  Comment by Chairman   Chairman Nakanishi's Comments on the Inauguration of U.S. President Biden

January 20th, 2021
Keidanren

I would like to congratulate President Biden and Vice President Harris on their inauguration and the start of the new presidential administration.

Since its founding, the United States has strived to achieve unity within diversity under the principles of democracy. The world looks to the incoming administration to bring the United States together again and help the country regain its leadership role in the world.

The entire world is now confronting the critical challenges of rejuvenating the global economy, which has felt the full, wearying effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and rebuilding an increasingly shaky, unstable international order. To overcome these challenges, the United States plays a unique and special role to help forge solutions through the power and influence it holds. The Biden administration's plans to make international cooperation a policy priority is welcomed in Tokyo and around the world.

President Biden has also pledged to bring the United States back into the Paris Agreement, embodying a firm commitment to tackling threats from climate change. We look forward to President Biden providing leadership in ushering the global community toward green growth, recognizing that all countries have an important role to play.

Another pressing need for the world is to maintain and bolster a free, open international economic order with a grounding in fair rules. To help bring that ideal to fruition, the new administration can play a critical role in promoting the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP), achieving the free flow of cross-border data, and rebuilding the multilateral rules-based trading system through reform of the World Trade Organization and other relevant initiatives.

Building on the solid foundation of the U.S.-Japan alliance, Japan needs to continue to develop a strong and multilayered relationship with the United States—including the personal relationships of trust between the two countries' leaders—and tackle these challenges together in a collaborative, coordinated fashion based on our shared values and interests. The Japanese government also needs to persistently work with the United States to strengthen its economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, including considering rejoining the TPP.

Keidanren will continue to work with the U.S. federal and state executive branches, legislatures, and the U.S. business community on issues facing our two nations; actively expand and promote the contributions that Japanese companies make to both the U.S. economy and to American society through ongoing investments that create high-paying jobs and expand U.S. exports; and work to make U.S.-Japan relations even stronger.