Japan
America’s alliance with Japan has been the foundation of U.S. security policy in East Asia for decades. The United States has over 80 military facilities in Japan and more American military personnel are permanently stationed there (approximately 55,000) than in any other country.
Unfortunately, Japan is also one of the most horrifying examples of Donald Trump’s consistently disrespect behavior toward our allies. In June 2019, before his departure for the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, President Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the security treaty we have had with Japan since 1951. The Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan solidifies the incredibly important relationship between our two countries and has, for decades, been an integral part of American foreign policy.
Asked about the fairness of the treaty, Donald Trump irreverently responded, “If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us at all. They can watch it on a Sony television.” Put aside for the moment that he sounded like a complete jerk, this was not the time for disruptive rhetoric aimed at one of our closest allies. At a time when China’s military ambitions increase and a nuclear North Korea continues its bad behavior, the security treaty between the United States protects us every bit as much as it does Japan. In fact, we need Japan now more than ever. This was just an insanely irresponsible to do.
Beyond that, we need true American leadership to ensure that our allies get along among themselves. Historical grievances between South Korea and Japan have reached critical mass, with grave global economic and security consequences. What started as a question about what, if anything, Japan owes South Korea for Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula until Japan’s surrender in World War II has expanded to disputes over territory and geopolitical squabbles.
To maintain rules-based international order in the Indo-Pacific, it is important that the United States help bridge the gap between our two allies and encourage trilateral cooperation between the United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK). Although it seemed former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was open to improving relations – establishing a foundation in 2023 to compensate former forced laborers from Japan – Japan remained distrustful, to say the least.
Thankfully, after the first Trump administration ended, our relations with Japan got back on track. Saying in an April 2024 address to a joint session of the United States Congress that the “Ukraine of today may be East Asia of tomorrow,” then Prime Minster Fumio Kishida announced a new national security and defense strategy that included growing Japan’s defense spending, establishing a Joint Operations Center to improve the Japan Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF) operational effectiveness, and acquiring long-range counterstrike capabilities.
Plus, after being revived by the first Trump administration, the Quad – a security arrangement among the United States, Australia, India, and Japan because of nervousness over China’s behavior – was reenforced by the Biden administration, and President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida established over seventy agreements during Kishida’s state visit to the United States in April 2024. All of these actions are more important than ever as China escalates its aggressive maritime behavior; China and Japan continue their long-standing dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea; the increasing threat of missile development in North Korea; and concerns over stability in the Taiwan Strait (former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe once said that “a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency”).
Although things in the second Trump administration got off to a promising start – Japan’s Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi attended the inauguration, becoming the first Japanese foreign minister to do so, and he met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio the very next day – Trump's trade war caused things to go south again. Just days after signing a proclamation to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports, top trade officials from South Korea, Japan and China – all three of which Donald publicly accused of being trade abusers – set a meeting to discuss economic cooperation among themselves.
By June 2025, President Trump was on FOX News saying that Japan engages in “unfair” automobile trade with the United States and that he was going to write a letter saying something like, “Dear Mr. Japan, here’s the story. You’re going to pay a 25 percent tariff on your cars.”
By October, Japan agreed to invest $550 billion in America over the years to come in exchange for a tariff of 15 percent on U.S. imports of its cars, machinery, and other products. Although this is better than the 27.5 percent they faced over the summer, it’s still far higher than before Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office.
The good news is that Japan’s first female prime minister Sanae Takaichi saw Donald Trump coming from a mile away and played her hand perfectly when he visited Japan in late October – enchanting him with a putter that belonged to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who Trump considered a friend during his first term; a rare-earth minerals deal; and even a Nobel Peace Prize nomination…. to which Donald Trump responded by saying Takaichi would “go down as one of the great prime ministers.” Worked like a charm, Ms. Takaichi!