On the menu today: You may not have thought much about U.S.-Japanese relations lately, but it’s worth our attention as Donald Trump’s second term begins. The threats from China and North Korea aren’t going anywhere, Japan is in the midst of a historic arms buildup, and a Japanese company is one of the three big investors in the newly announced “Stargate” program. Our new secretary of state, Marco Rubio, could have met with any countries’ counterparts on his first day, but he met with representatives of the three other members of “the Quad,” India, Australia, and Japan. Read on.
Maintaining Alliances in an Era of ‘America First’
Right after meeting with U.S. State Department employees and sending his first cable, secretary of state Marco Rubio held his first diplomatic meeting with his counterparts from “the Quad” — Australian foreign minister Penny Wong, Indian minister of external affairs Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, and Japanese foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya.
Last night, Japanese foreign-ministry press secretary Toshihiro Kitamura and assistant press secretary Masashi Mizobuchi offered several reporters a detailed briefing of how the Japanese government is establishing ties with the incoming administration. For more than a decade, there’s been talk about a “pivot to Asia” in U.S. foreign policy; Rubio’s choice of partners for his first meeting is a potential sign that the Trump administration’s foreign policy will indeed prioritize stability in the Pacific.
After the quad meeting, Iwaya met with Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and then Iwaya had a one-on-one meeting with Rubio.
The official press releases about the meetings were about what you would expect; after the quad meeting, the four chief diplomats issued a statement declaring they reaffirmed “our shared commitment to strengthening a Free and Open Indo-Pacific where the rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty, and territorial integrity are upheld and defended. Our four nations maintain our conviction that international law, economic opportunity, peace, stability, and security in all domains including the maritime domain underpin the development and prosperity of the peoples of the Indo-Pacific. We also strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.” This was, in many ways, a getting-to-know-you meeting.
The official statement from Iwaya’s meeting with Waltz noted, “The two sides exchanged views on regional issues such as policies toward North Korea including on the nuclear and missile issues and issues related to China. Minister Iwaya asked for NSA Waltz’s continued understanding and cooperation toward the immediate resolution of the abductions issue and gained full support from NSA Waltz.”
The “abductions issue” is a longstanding major priority for the Japanese government, and a demonstration of how the threat from North Korea can show up literally on their shores:
Japan says North Korea abducted at least 17 Japanese citizens, possibly many more, to train them as agents during the 1970s and 1980s. After admitting in 2002 it had abducted 13 Japanese, North Korea apologized and allowed five to return home for a visit. They have since stayed in Japan. Pyongyang said eight others had died and denied that the other four entered its territory and never provided a reinvestigation it has promised.
The twelve who are still missing include teenage students and others living along Japan’s coasts. Many were bundled into small boats and taken across the sea to North Korea.
Kitamura said that the Japanese government is particularly concerned about the increased cooperation between Russia and North Korea. While he could not discuss any particular new intelligence, he said a particular focus is the risk that Russia is helping North Korea with its missile programs, making those missiles faster and with a farther range.
“North Korean technology is improving constantly,” Kitamura said.
The Japanese government, whose military activities are strongly curtailed by Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, is in the midst of an arms buildup. Traditionally, Japan had only spent 1 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, but in 2022, acknowledging increasing threats to security in the region, the Japanese government aimed to raise for defense-related spending of 2 percent of GDP by the 2027 fiscal year. Japan’s defense-related budget for fiscal year 2024 has expanded to 1.6 percent of GDP, and Kitamura said the government is on pace to reach that threshold by the intended deadline.
(Note that Japan has the fourth-largest economy in the world, so 1 percent of GDP in Japan is considerably larger than 1 percent of GDP for many NATO countries. With a GDP of $4.2 trillion in 2023, 2 percent would be $84 billion, roughly on par with the current military spending of the United Kingdom.) In April, then-Japanese defense minister Minoru Kihara said Japan would spend $56.7 billion on defense in the twelve months through March 2025.)
President Trump’s nominee to be the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for policy is Elbridge Colby, who has pushed for Japan to effectively triple its previous level of defense spending.
In an interview with the Nikkei business daily in September, Colby said, “The problem I see in Japan is that Japan, despite being under intense, intense threat from China and also North Korea and in a very near term, is largely moving at a leisurely pace on defense. . . . Japan’s efforts are inadequate. So, my view is absolutely, Japan should be spending at least 3 percent — and not 2 percent of GDP — in order to at least defend itself.”
Shigeru Ishiba only became Japanese prime minister on October 1. In late September, days before he became leader of his party and stepped into his role as the head of his country’s government, he offered his thoughts on regional security to the Washington-based Hudson Institute:
Ukraine today is Asia tomorrow. Replacing Russia with China and Ukraine with Taiwan, the absence of a collective self-defense system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defense. Under these circumstances, the creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China by its Western allies. . . .
Recently, Russia and North Korea have formed a military alliance, and nuclear technology is being transferred from Russia to North Korea. North Korea is strengthening its nuclear and missile capabilities, and if China’s strategic nuclear weapons are added to these dynamics, the U.S. extended deterrence in the region will no longer function. This is to be supplemented by an Asian version of NATO, which must ensure deterrence against the nuclear alliance of China, Russia, and North Korea. The Asian version of NATO must also specifically consider America’s sharing of nuclear weapons or the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region.
You know the world has changed a great deal when Japanese lawmakers are open to the idea of U.S. nuclear weapons arriving in the region. Since 1967, Japan banned nuclear weapons from its territory, which technically barred U.S. nuclear-armed submarines and ships from Japanese ports. With that said, there is considerable evidence that a de facto “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prevailed when nuclear-armed U.S. ships arrived in Japan.
Ishiba also wrote in that Hudson Institute essay:
The current Japan-US security treaty is structured so that the US is obligated to “defend” Japan, and Japan is obligated to “provide bases” to the US. The time is ripe to change this “asymmetrical bilateral treaty.” It is possible that the Japan-US Security Treaty and Status of Forces Agreement could be revised to allow the Self-Defense Forces to be stationed in Guam to strengthen the deterrence capabilities of Japan and the US. If this happens, a status agreement for the “SDF in Guam” could be made the same as that for US forces in Japan. Furthermore, expanding the scope of joint management of US bases in Japan would also reduce the burden on US forces in Japan.
Some residents of Guam are . . . less than thrilled about that prospect.
On Monday, the three visiting foreign ministers attended the inauguration of President Trump in the rotunda, and Foreign Minister Takeshi attended the Inaugural Ball at Union Station. Iwaya’s visit concluded with a dinner meeting with Tennessee senator Bill Hagerty, who served as U.S. ambassador to Japan during Trump’s first term. Trump has named George Glass, a businessman known for hawkish stances on China, to be his next ambassador to Japan, but his Senate confirmation hearing is not yet scheduled. Glass served as ambassador to Portugal during Trump’s first term.
Kitamura and Mizobuchi said the Japanese government hopes that President Trump will meet with Ishiba soon, perhaps as early as February or March. The Japanese Diet (meaning the legislature, not what they eat) will be debating and settling the budget in coming weeks — their equivalent of an appropriations process — and it is more difficult to arrange foreign trips during that period.
On November 7, the Japanese prime minister called Trump to congratulate him on his victory; in a somewhat disappointing sign, the call was approximately five minutes.
Ishiba has some big shoes to fill. Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, said the late prime minster Shinzo Abe had the best relationship with Trump of any foreign leader. (Abe was assassinated by a crazed gunman in 2022.) Earlier this month, Bolton wrote, “My advice to world leaders looking to do business with Trump: follow the example of Shinzo Abe and talk to Trump as much as possible, not just when you need something. Call him. Meet with him. Talk to him about anything. And if all else fails, learn how to play golf.”
Ishiba played golf in college but hasn’t played in a while; the suggestion for him to take up the game again isn’t entirely tongue-in-cheek.
You notice Trump is threatening tariffs on Canada and Mexico and China. But Trump hasn’t rattled his tariff saber with Japan much at all. This is likely because in Trump’s worldview, Japan is being “fair” by investing a great deal of money in the United States. For five straight years, Japan has been the largest foreign investor in the U.S. — reaching $988.7 billion in 2023, according to numbers from the U.S. government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Yesterday, Trump’s major infrastructure announcement was “Stargate*,” a joint venture between three large tech companies to invest as much as $500 billion into building out U.S. artificial-intelligence infrastructure over four years; the three major companies are Oracle, Open AI, and Softbank, a major Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Tokyo.
At yesterday’s press conference, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son put on a clinic on how to flatter Trump and build a cheerful rapport with the president.
“Last month I came to celebrate your winning, and promised that we will invest $100 billion,” Son said. “And you told me, ‘oh Masa, go for $200 [billion]!’ Now I came back with 500! Because, because this is the, as you [said] yesterday, uh, this is the beginning of a golden age, golden age of America. This is one great example I think. Right? We wouldn’t have decided to do this. This is the beginning of the golden age. We wouldn’t have decided unless you won.”
With yesterday’s Stargate announcement, Japan is a good bet to be the largest foreign investor in the U.S. in 2025, as well.
*Yes, I too was hoping for an announcement that the U.S. Air Force had secretly been traveling throughout the universe through alien-built wormholes that had been around since the time of the Ancient Egyptians.
ADDENDUM: Speaking of John Bolton . . . in case you missed it yesterday, the new president — who just pledged, “I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats” — took away Bolton’s U.S. Secret Service security detail.
The threat to Bolton’s life is not imaginary or theoretical. Shahram Poursafi, an Iranian national and member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, attempted to arrange Bolton’s murder in 2021. The IRGC member offered a confidential human source “$250,000 to hire someone to ‘eliminate’ the former National Security Advisor. This amount would later be negotiated up to $300,000. Poursafi added that he had an additional ‘job,’ for which he would pay $1 million.”
Poursafi provided the would-be-assassin with Bolton’s work address and “screenshots of a map application showing a street view of the former National Security Advisor’s office,” as well as “specifics regarding the former National Security Advisor’s schedule that do not appear to have been publicly available.” In February of 2022, Poursafi told the would-be assassin “that someone checked the area around the former National Security Advisor’s home, and he believed there was not a security presence, so the CHS should be able to ‘finish the job.’”
Shahram Poursafi is indicted but remains at large. He is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list and is considered armed and dangerous.
The whole reason the Iranian government wants to kill Bolton is in retaliation for the January 2020 strike that killed IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani, ordered by Trump.
Whether you like or dislike Bolton shouldn’t really matter in this discussion. A hostile foreign state has marked a former U.S. official for death, and one of President Trump’s first acts was to remove his Secret Service protection.
Given a choice between a former aide who irked him or Iranian assassins, Trump chose to stand with the assassins.
That’s why President Trump is soft on Iran.