First Lady Jill Biden is tipped to visit Japan for the Tokyo Olympics on a solo trip in place of President Joe Biden, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported Sunday.
The two countries are seeking ways for the president’s wife to attend the opening ceremony, set for July 23, as well as meet with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and other senior diplomatic officials during her stay, according to sources cited by the outlet.
The Yomiuri Shimbun reports the lone dispatch of Jill Biden is regarded as a signal honor for the hosts that “sends a message of the importance of the relationship with Japan.”
Japan is a major ally for the U.S. in Asia, and the president has expressed his support for Suga’s efforts to hold the Games amid the coronavirus pandemic.
French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country will host the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics, is also likely to attend.
This will not be first time the first lady has stepped out in place of her husband or played a part in his day-to-day political engagement with the public.
As Breitbart News reported, during last year’s presidential campaign she visited the Twin Cities, making stops in St. Paul and speaking to supporters in Minneapolis in support of her husband’s bid for office.
Drawing what one outlet described as “a small, but energized crowd of women deemed ‘Women for Biden,’” at her last stop, Jill Biden appeared happy to appear in her husband’s stead while pushing his political agenda.
In April this year she journeyed to California in a visit to a pop-up vaccination site for farmworkers designed to encourage others to join the national mass coronavirus vaccination program.
Video of her effort to speak Spanish to around 100 farm workers during the stop in Delano attracted almost as much attention as the flag that provided the backdrop.
More recently Dr. Biden, 70, attended the G7 summit in Cornwall, England alongside her husband.
On that trip it was revealed she gave the U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s son Wilfred a copy of the picture book she wrote about the president’s early years and his life among young children.
The first lady personally delivered the gift to Carrie Johnson, the one-year-old’s mother, as they walked along the beachfront at Carbis Bay, Cornwall, according to the Daily Mail.
Simon & Schuster published Joey: The Story of Joe Biden, in June last year.
Publisher’s Weekly describes the tome as an “anecedotal portrait” of the man who grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, looking to his “early years spotlights his competitiveness and risk-taking…his role as a peacemaker, devoted brother, and defender of bullied peers.”