Another day, another Trumpian bombshell, this one aimed at the country he says he loves: Japan. Trump told reporters this week that the US-Japan security alliance which has bound the two countries together militarily since 1952 and offered military guarantees to Japan since 1960 was ‘interesting’ but unequal as it obliged the US to defend Japan but not vice-versa.
Trump added that the Japanese ‘make a fortune with us economically’ a reference to Japan’s trade surplus with the US. Trump was speaking ahead of a visit by Japan’s trade minister who will reportedly ask (perhaps beg) for an exemption from pending US tariffs on steel and aluminium (25 per cent due next week with ‘no exceptions’).
Trump’s comments have provoked a head in hands reaction from strung-out Japanese policy makers, who are already worried about his pick as undersecretary of defence for policy Eldridge Colby and his worryingly equivocal remarks about US obligations to Taiwan.
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