When Donald Trump was elected to a second term as U.S. president, Japan braced for the worst. But the tumult generated by the first year of his second term has so far exceeded even Tokyo’s deepest fears.
Unlike during his first White House stint from 2017-2021, Trump’s second term has seen him unshackled from norms and decor, free to make demands of the alliance and the world at large.
From the threat of tariffs to demands that Tokyo ramp up defense spending and take on more responsibilities, to the White House’s indifference toward upholding the rule of law and its kid-gloved approach to China, Trump is prompting a crisis of confidence in the alliance and hammering what some experts say is the proverbial final nail in the coffin of the liberal international order.
“For better or worse, Trump 2.0 marks the end of the long postwar international order and the beginning of an era of blunt power politics,” said Sebastian Maslow, an international relations expert and associate professor at the University of Tokyo. “The question is how Japan will adapt to this newly unfolding order and what role the bilateral alliance will play in it.”
But dealing with Trump, who has almost systematically undermined some of the bedrock principles of the alliance, will be a necessity for the foreseeable future. Indeed, for Tokyo, the options are severely limited: the U.S is Japan’s security guarantor and one of its biggest trading partners.
“The fact of the matter is that Japan has few alternatives,” said Maslow. “Any departure from the U.S. alliance, despite all the contradictions this would entail regarding past rhetoric about the values the alliance symbolizes and preserves, would leave Japan more vulnerable.”
Over the past year, Tokyo has done and continues to do what it can to preserve some measure of the status quo.
It has sealed a tariff deal to avert an economic crisis (in exchange for a $550 billion investment pledge), staved off immediate calls for higher defense spending as others faced Trump’s fury, and Japanese leaders have successfully navigated the minefield of bilateral meetings with the U.S. president.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has shown a particularly adept approach at the latter, channeling her late mentor, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — perhaps the world leader closest to Trump during his first term — and winning plaudits for a “near-perfect” bilateral summit in October, just a week after she took office.
Takaichi has also dispatched Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi to better convey the nuances of Japan’s defense build-up. Koizumi has now twice met with his U.S. counterpart, Pete Hegseth, explaining Takaichi’s decision to move forward a goal of spending 2% of gross domestic product…