It has been over seven months since former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated, but his takes on former President Donald Trump are just now being revealed to the public.
According to the Wall Street Journal, in Abe's new posthumously published book, he was highly critical of Trump's relaxed and passive position with North Korea and its dictator-leader Kim Jong-un.
Abe wanted Trump to take more a traditional U.S. foreign affairs policy with North Korea, focusing on putting pressure on their negative record of human rights and showing the detriment of their isolation from the world and the growing global economy.
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Instead, Abe said Trump was too eager to give credibility to Jong-un's dictatorship, despite his push for Trump to take a stronger stance.
The Wall Street Journal article said that Abe "found Mr. Trump weak and overly eager for a deal."
The Japanese-language book was published this week.
Abe was Japan's longest-serving prime minister and one of the country's most recognisable political figures, known for cultivating international alliances and his "Abenomics" economic strategy.
He resigned in 2020 over recurring health problems, but remained a key political voice and was campaigning for his ruling party when a lone gunman killed him with a homemade weapon on July 8.
The shooting sent shock waves through a country with famously low gun crime and prompted international condemnation.
With additional reporting by AFP
