US & Canada

Biden Unable to Visit Nagasaki during G7 Japan Trip due to Conflicted Schedule

Reuters
U.S. President Joe Biden is seen at the White House in Washington on Tuesday.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

13:08 JST, April 7, 2023

U.S. President Joe Biden will not visit Nagasaki during his May trip to Japan for the Group of Seven summit meeting in Hiroshima due to scheduling difficulties, according to Japanese government sources.

Tokyo and Washington had held discussions following an informal request from the U.S. side for Biden to visit the atomic-bombed city but concluded that it would be difficult to secure a date, the sources said Thursday.

Had the plan come to fruition, it would have been the first time for a sitting U.S. president to visit Nagasaki.

The Japanese government is working to have G7 leaders, including Biden, visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which conveys the horrors of the bombing.

In 2016, then U.S. President Barack Obama became the first incumbent U.S. president to visit Hiroshima.

Biden, who served as vice president in the Obama administration, shares Obama’s ideal of a nuclear-free world. A plan was thus floated within the Biden administration for the president to visit Nagasaki before or after the Hiroshima summit.