Ben Rhodes

Japan hosts more forward-deployed U.S. troops than any other country and serves as home port for our only forward-deployed aircraft carrier. In 2011, when a tsunami devastated Japan and created the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear facility, the United States stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our Japanese allies to respond and rebuild.

Following one of the most violent conflicts in human history, the United States and Japan built a deep and abiding friendship - an alliance that has underwritten unprecedented economic growth and security in the Asia Pacific for half a century. It is an alliance based on mutual interests and shared values and the ties between our people.