reported<\/a> that today\u2019s visit will likely be fraught, as Trump is looking for military aid against Iran. \u201cJapanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s first official visit to Washington this week was supposed to be a triumphant celebration of the friendship, with a gift of 250 Japanese cherry trees to mark America\u2019s big birthday. Instead, she will be greeted by a wartime president who\u2019s looking for a different kind of gift from her country: Military assistance in the Middle East,\u201d Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Chie Tanaka write. \u201cIran is expected to be a dominant topic when the two leaders meet on Thursday, and Takaichi is walking a tightrope. Her pacifist nation wants to avoid taking sides in the war. It also doesn\u2019t want to annoy President Donald Trump, the unpredictable leader of Japan\u2019s only security ally.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Headshot](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778480169_25_121b4598-31f9-4716-af00-a68368fb7913_1643729378.file.png\" "\\"Headshot")
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Emily Burack (she\/her) is the Deputy Digital Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2 min read The Japanese government is giving the United States 250 cherry blossom trees to celebrate the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[16022,316,16020,318,12818,177,179,317,180,178,6518,16019,16021],"class_list":{"0":"post-20249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-collection-politics-in-2026","9":"tag-content-type-news","10":"tag-contentid-9cd99ed6-d9ee-4ec5-a227-b203dec246f6","11":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","12":"tag-issyndicated-false","13":"tag-japans-politics","14":"tag-japanese-politics","15":"tag-locale-us","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-politics-of-japan","18":"tag-read_time-2","19":"tag-shorttitle-250-new-cherry-blossom-trees-in-dc-from-japan","20":"tag-subsection-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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2 min read<\/p>\n