This month within the White Home’s Rose Backyard, as he held up a placard exhibiting the worldwide wave of tariffs he needed to impose, President Trump paused to fondly recall a fallen good friend.
“The prime minister of Japan, Shinzo, was — Shinzo Abe — he was a improbable man,” Mr. Trump stated throughout the tariff announcement on April 2. “He was, sadly, taken from us, assassination.”
The phrases of reward for Mr. Abe, who was gunned down three years in the past throughout a marketing campaign speech, didn’t cease Mr. Trump from slapping a 24 % tariff on merchandise imported from Japan. However they have been uncommon, nonetheless, coming from a president who has had few good issues to say today about different allies, significantly Canada and Europe.
Now, Japan will likely be one of many first international locations allowed to discount for a doable reprieve from Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, lots of which he has placed on maintain for 90 days. On Thursday, a negotiator handpicked by Japan’s present prime minister is scheduled to start talks in Washington with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others.
Japan’s place on the entrance of the road displays the totally different strategy that Mr. Trump has taken towards the nation. Whereas the president nonetheless accuses it of unfair commerce insurance policies and an unequal safety relationship, he additionally praises it in the identical breath as a detailed ally, an historical tradition and a savvy negotiator.
“I like Japan,” Mr. Trump advised reporters final month. “However now we have an attention-grabbing cope with Japan the place now we have to guard them however they don’t have to guard us,” referring to the safety treaty that bases 50,000 U.S. army personnel in Japan.
Japan holds a particular, if not at all times fond, place in Mr. Trump’s considering. Its meteoric financial rise within the Eighties formed his present views of worldwide commerce, together with his ardour for tariffs. Some observers say the president has maintained a love-hate relationship with Japan that leads him to criticize the nation whereas additionally admiring it — and reveling within the flattery from its current leaders.
“Trump’s conduct towards Japan seems to be fairly contradictory, nevertheless it’s really very constant,” stated Glen S. Fukushima, a former U.S. commerce official who has watched U.S.-Japan relations for greater than 4 many years. “He has quite a lot of admiration and respect for Japan, which he thinks has been actually shrewd in hoodwinking the People.”
Whereas the president on Wednesday suspended the broadest tariffs after monetary markets went into free fall, Japan nonetheless faces a brand new 10 % base tariff that Mr. Trump has imposed on most imports to America. Late Friday, the White Home amended its phrases once more by sparing smartphones, computer systems, semiconductors and different electronics from tariffs. But there additionally stay larger levies on metal and aluminum and a 25 % tariff on autos, which might hit Japan’s financial system laborious.
Japan has reacted with emotions of betrayal and bewilderment to the tariffs, which focused America’s associates and foes alike. After failed diplomatic efforts to win Japan an exemption, Shigeru Ishiba, the present prime minister, declared the tariffs a “nationwide disaster.”
However on the similar time, Mr. Trump has given Japan extra privileged remedy. When Mr. Ishiba needed to debate a doable deal to scale back tariffs, Mr. Trump took the decision.
“Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He’s sending a high crew to barter!” Mr. Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform. True to kind, the president then instantly shifted right into a grievance that Japan has “handled the U.S. very poorly on Commerce.”
“They don’t take our automobiles, however we take MILLIONS of theirs,” he wrote.
Whereas flip-flopping just isn’t uncommon for Mr. Trump’s off-the-cuff type, his cut up view of Japan goes a lot deeper, extending again to his early days as a Manhattan actual property developer. Even then, he spoke of Japan as each a valued buyer for his buildings and a supply of financing for brand spanking new offers, whereas additionally railing in opposition to the unequal steadiness of commerce.
“America is being ripped off,” Mr. Trump stated in an interview in 1988. “We’re a debtor nation, and now we have to tax, now we have to tariff, now we have to guard this nation.”
In 2016, these attitudes helped carry him to victory amongst voters disillusioned with globalization. However earlier than Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Abe was the primary world chief to go to the president-elect in Trump Tower, the place he applauded Mr. Trump’s election win and offered him with a gold-plated golf membership. Mr. Trump, who was nonetheless being considered warily by different world leaders, by no means forgot the gesture, stated Shinsuke J. Sugiyama, who was Japan’s ambassador to the USA throughout the first Trump administration.
“Abe took a threat by being the primary world chief to go to him,” Mr. Sugiyama stated. “This gave Trump a complete totally different picture of Japan.”
Japan’s present prime minister has tried to make use of that very same playbook throughout the second Trump administration, however with blended outcomes. Mr. Abe’s widow, Akie Abe, had dinner with Mr. Trump and Melania Trump in January on the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
A month later, Mr. Ishiba turned one of many first heads of state to go to Mr. Trump on the White Home, taking part in up Japan’s large investments in American enterprise and trade. He additionally talked about the July 2024 assassination try on Mr. Trump, telling the U.S. president, “You have been one chosen by God.”
Mr. Ishiba earned precedence entry to Mr. Trump for his negotiator, a detailed political ally named Ryosei Akazawa, who will almost certainly pledge to purchase extra American meals, weapons and power. Mr. Ishiba hopes he can provide sufficient to win an exemption from Mr. Trump’s tariffs.
“By being first to bend a knee, Abe allowed Trump to say, ‘Look, Japan was laughing at us, however now that I’m in energy, they arrive to see me,’” stated Jennifer M. Miller, a historian of U.S.-Japan relations at Dartmouth Faculty. “Ishiba is hoping the previous playbook will nonetheless work.”
