This month within the White Home’s Rose Backyard, as he held up a placard displaying 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 implausible man,” Mr. Trump stated through 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 ago throughout a marketing campaign speech, didn’t cease Mr. Trump from slapping a 24 p.c tariff on merchandise imported from Japan. However they had been uncommon, nonetheless, coming from a president who has had few good issues to say nowadays about different allies, notably Canada and Europe.
Now, Japan can be one of many first nations 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 method 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 an in depth ally, an historic tradition and a savvy negotiator.
“I like Japan,” Mr. Trump instructed reporters final month. “However we’ve got an attention-grabbing take care of Japan the place we’ve got 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 pondering. Its meteoric financial rise within the Eighties formed his present views of world 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 appears to be like fairly contradictory, but it surely’s truly 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 plenty of admiration and respect for Japan, which he thinks has been actually shrewd in hoodwinking the Individuals.”
Whereas the president on Wednesday suspended the broadest tariffs after monetary markets went into free fall, Japan nonetheless faces a brand new 10 p.c base tariff that Mr. Trump has imposed on most imports to America. Late Friday, the White Home amended its terms again by sparing smartphones, computer systems, semiconductors and different electronics from tariffs. But there additionally stay increased levies on metal and aluminum and a 25 percent tariff on autos, which could hit Japan’s economy hard.
Japan has reacted with emotions of betrayal and bewilderment to the tariffs, which focused America’s buddies 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 identical 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 prime staff to barter!” Mr. Trump wrote Monday on his social media platform. True to type, the president then instantly shifted right into a criticism 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 fashion, 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 new offers, whereas additionally railing in opposition to the unequal steadiness of commerce.
“America is being ripped off,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in 1988. “We’re a debtor nation, and we’ve got to tax, we’ve got to tariff, we’ve got 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 introduced him with a gold-plated golf membership. Mr. Trump, who was nonetheless being seen warily by different world leaders, by no means forgot the gesture, stated Shinsuke J. Sugiyama, who was Japan’s ambassador to the US through the first Trump administration.
“Abe took a danger 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 through the second Trump administration, however with combined 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 grew to become one of many first heads of state to go to Mr. Trump on the White Home, enjoying up Japan’s enormous investments in American enterprise and trade. He additionally talked about the July 2024 assassination try on Mr. Trump, telling the U.S. president, “You had been one chosen by God.”
Mr. Ishiba earned precedence entry to Mr. Trump for his negotiator, an in depth political ally named Ryosei Akazawa, who will most definitely pledge to purchase extra American meals, weapons and vitality. Mr. Ishiba hopes he can supply 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.”
