⁍ U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Asia next week demonstrates Washington’s strong commitment to allies and partners in the region, the top American diplomat for East Asia said on Friday.

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⁍ P Pompeo said earlier on Friday he would go ahead with the trip to Japan, South Korea and Mongolia, even after President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus.

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⁍ He told reporters traveling with him that both he and his wife tested negative for COVID-19 20 minutes before landing in Dubrovnik on Friday.

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– Mike Pompeo says he’s going ahead with a trip to Japan, South Korea, and Mongolia despite President Trump’s diagnosis of the coronavirus. The secretary of state, who tested negative for the virus 20 minutes before landing in Croatia on Friday, says both he and his wife tested negative for the virus, Reuters reports. Pompeo, the fourth in line to succeed Trump if necessary, says he had last seen the president on Sept. 15. He says the trip to Asia next week demonstrates Washington’s strong commitment to allies and partners in the region. The top American diplomat for East Asia, David Stilwell, said Friday that the US sees the decision by new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to host Pompeo as a reaffirmation of an ever-strengthening partnership. Stilwell said a ministerial meeting of the Quad grouping of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India next Tuesday would probably not produce a joint statement, adding that the group has shared values, but different perspectives. Stilwell called the US-Japan relationship ‘the cornerstone of peace, security, and prosperity for the Indo-Pacific region.’ He said the Quad, which China has denounced as an attempt to contain its development, was focused on furthering ‘a shared vision of a free open and inclusive Indo-Pacific … ‘especially as (China’s) tactics of aggression and coercion, increase in the region.’