When I see the friendly smiles exchanged between Donald Trump and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during the American president’s visit to Japan, and the phrases from both praising the alliance between the two countries, I can only remember what diplomat and historian Edwin O. Reischauer once wrote about the American occupation that followed the end of the Second World War: it was benign to the point that “never have an occupier and an occupied person ever taken so much advantage of such a situation”. Reischauer had everything to be the best observer of the transformations that were taking place since 1945 in the bilateral relationship, as he was born in Tokyo to missionaries, received a doctorate from Harvard with a thesis on Japanese history, helped in the war effort by teaching Japanese to American soldiers, and was United States ambassador to Japan.
Neither people forgot Pearl Harbor or Hiroshima, but they were able in the post-war period to forge an alliance that, with many ups and occasional downs, lasts until today; and that if, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the great shared threat, now it is directed above all towards China, whose brilliant rise in the last half century worries both Tokyo and Washington. It is, in fact, interesting that at a time when Trump insists on greater Japanese investment in Defense, the great theoretical obstacle is still Article 9 of a pacifist Constitution imposed by the United States in 1947, the same Constitution that helped the archipelago to rebuild itself not only as a great economic power, but also as a democracy, for decades the only one in East Asia.
Takaichi, the first woman to head a government in Japan, has everything it takes to get along well with Trump, after all she is a kind of political heir to Sinzo Abe, a former prime minister who advocated for the country’s need to strengthen its armed forces. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and also thanks to constant Chinese pressure on Taiwan, investment in Defense finally began to increase, leaving the 1% level that was the rule. As in the case of Abe during Trump’s first term, Takaichi will have managed to develop good personal chemistry, and for this, in addition to words, the entire ceremony set up in Tokyo to welcome the American president will have been decisive, from the meeting with Emperor Naruhito to the reception offered by the prime minister at the Akasaka Palace, where American rice and steaks will have been served, with Japanese ingredients as well, remembering that the issue of trade is always present on the American president’s agenda (with Japan, the United States avoided a tariff war through negotiations during the time of Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, agreeing on 15%). The presidential visit to Japan, held between a trip to the ASEAN summit in Malaysia, and participation in the APEC summit in South Korea, also resulted in an agreement on so-called rare earths.
If the Japanese-American alliance is strengthened from the meeting between Trump and Takaichi, attention will now focus on the meeting that the American president will have in Seoul on Thursday with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Beijing was following what happened in Tokyo, and the strengthening of the alliance between its great global rival and its great regional rival will never be viewed favorably, even if it is in the interests of the three to maintain good relations. Especially because on this tour of Asia, Trump demonstrated one of the United States’ great advantages in the competition for world supremacy: the ability to have remote allies, from traditional ones like Indonesia and the Philippines, to new ones, like Vietnam, all members of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; and, in addition to Japan, of course, South Korea itself, which hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum this Wednesday, and also Taiwan, an island that Beijing considers a rebel territory.
A study by the Pew Institute, from 2025, on countries that see the United States as a great ally, highlighted the second and third position of South Korea and Japan, only behind Israel. Four out of every five Japanese people look to the United States as the country they count on for their security, including the nuclear umbrella. Takaichi knew how to interpret this popular feeling and Trump, satisfied, bet on reciprocity, telling him that the United States would be there for “anything he wanted, any favors he needed, anything… to help Japan”.
Deputy Director of Diário de Notícias