Summit roundup | Japan Daily Briefing
Japan looks at what was said - and not said - Thursday
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I spoke with the Mainichi Shimbun about the summit, published here.
I discussed the summit on Bloomberg’s The Asia Trade, available below. (Check out comments from friends Alastair Gale and Mireya Solis as well.)
With Japan off for Vernal Equinox Day on Friday, 20 March, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s summit with Donald Trump was effectively the only political story of the day.
The Takaichi government itself breathed a sigh of relief, feeling that the prime minister avoided the worst-case scenario after heading into the summit unsure of what exactly Trump would say after demanding that Japan and other countries contribute to efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz. That said, some government sources suggested that their hopes for a more expansive summit focused on China became more narrowly focused on the Hormuz crisis.
The prime minister’s performance drew positive reviews not only from ruling party lawmakers, but also from some opposition lawmakers. Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) leader Tamaki Yūichirō said it appeared to be a positive and well-managed meeting, though he added that after Trump praised Japan for “stepping up,” it is up to Japan to determine what it can do. Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA) leader Ogawa Junya similarly expressed his appreciation for the evident warmth between the leaders – and Takaichi’s apparent success in explaining Japan’s legal constraints – but suggested that her statement that “only Trump can bring peace” was at odds with many Japanese and stated that she ought to account for her remarks after she returns home. Japanese Communist Party leader Tamura Tomoko naturally accused her of sycophantically praising the “very person responsible for bringing war and chaos into the world.”
Nevertheless, in Sankei, columnist Inui Masato suggested that “flattery diplomacy” can still pay dividends for Japan, arguing that the alternative in a “world full of the wicked” would be casting off postwar constraints and pursuing a more independent, assertive foreign policy. Asahi’s Sonoda Koji noted in a similar vein that Takaichi’s approach to the summit reveals the uncomfortable realities of living in a world in which force reigns supreme, testing Japan’s commitment to the rule of law internationally.
In general, Takaichi appeared to benefit from the perception that she is a “winner” – Trump talked repeatedly about her landslide electoral victory – a tendency that has been visible in his meetings with other figures. (Look at his meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who certainly does not share Trump’s politics.) The two leaders further cemented their ties at a small dinner hosted at the White House, at which the band played X Japan’s “Rusty Nail” in tribute to Takaichi and the two leaders celebrated their relationship before a crowd that included numerous CEOs, including those of Google, IBM, Micron, Qualcomm, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Morgan Stanley, Blackrock, Boeing, and Booz Allen Hamilton. Softbank’s Son Masayoshi, who has been heavily involved in bilateral investment negotiations (not entirely welcomed in Tokyo) was in attendance too.
Meanwhile, the new investment projects – small modular reactors in Tennessee and Alabama, gas-fired power plants in Pennsylvania and Texas – satisfied Trump but have drawn scrutiny domestically. It has not escaped notice that the projects announced in the first two tranches of Japanese investment in the United States are either in battleground states that could be important for midterm elections in November or Trump-supporting “red” states. There are many questions about whether these projects will benefit Japan and, even if they will, whether the benefits will appear on a reasonable time scale. At the same time, Japan is still seeking commitments from the Trump administration to set Japan’s tariffs at the levels agreed last year after the Supreme Court nullified the IEEPA tariffs, prompting the administration to introduce new tariffs under its Section 122 authority. Those tariffs went unmentioned in both the public session and the various documents released after the summit.
Ultimately, as this review by the Nikkei Shimbun suggests, there is ample awareness that however close the relationship between Takaichi and Trump is, the structural drivers of anxiety for the Japanese government remain salient. “It will take ingenuity to keep the US committed to security in Asia,” the article notes. A summary by Nikkei Washington bureau chief Kawanami Takeshi likewise notes the major issues that went unaddressed. As Asahi writes, the summit leaves significant unanswered questions about the US commitment to East Asia, particularly as it shifts assets and draws down resources to wage war in the Middle East. The paper also notes that despite the bonhomie Thursday, there are looming issues in alliance burden-sharing as Japan prepares to update its core national security documents and the two governments brace for negotiations for a new special measures agreement to determine Japan’s contributions for host nation support for US forces in Japan.
Further reading
The White House’s fact sheet, released after my post yesterday was published, is available here.
The Osaka Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is not taking a position on Ishin no Kai’s auxiliary capital proposal.
China’s rare earths exports to Japan fell 21% month-over-month in January.
Iwata Kikuo, the reflationist former deputy governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), argues that investors are being misled into believing that the Takaichi government’s fiscal policies are risky for Japan.
How high could gasoline prices in Japan go?
Bungei Shunjū’s guide to the key figures in the Takaichi government.