Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has arrived at the White House for a meeting with Donald Trump where Japan’s leader hopes to declare a new golden era for relations but has been briefed to expect an unpredictable US president.
Ishiba is the first Asian leader to hold a face-to-face meeting with Trump, which will include formal talks and a lunch, since the president’s inauguration last month.
For Japan, the aim is to underscore the rock-solid nature of the relationship and receive clear assurances of the countries’ shared military alliance, while attempting to establish a personal connection between the golf-obsessed Trump and model train enthusiast Ishiba.
As Trump welcomed Ishiba at the White House on Friday morning, he said: “We love Japan”.
Ahead of the meeting, a senior US official stressed the strength of the US alliance with Japan. But he added that Trump would probably discuss “economic fairness” with Ishiba in the context of the US trade deficit with Japan. The two leaders are expected to discuss issues related to Japanese defence spending.
Officials in Tokyo involved in briefing the prime minister warned that Ishiba, who political analysts describe as neither a natural diplomat nor an agile conversationalist, was relatively inexperienced at such meetings, raising the risk that any mis-steps or misunderstandings with Trump could damage Japan’s most important alliance.
There is also no guarantee that the idiosyncratic Ishiba will follow the guidance of Japan’s diplomatic establishment on how to handle Trump, said Stephen Nagy, a fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs. “He could prove as much of a wild card as Trump.”
Political analysts said that Ishiba, who governs Japan through a fragile coalition and whose cabinet approval ratings have been sliding, must plot a narrow course. His domestic audience will demand he appear a staunch defender of a rules-based international order, at a time when Washington’s friendships and historic commitments have appeared vulnerable.
Ishiba will also be unable to avoid comparisons with the late Shinzo Abe, Japan’s charismatic former prime minister, who over 14 meetings, five rounds of golf and a gift of a golden putter forged a strong personal rapport with Trump. Ishiba will be travelling with the same interpreter who accompanied Abe on previous meetings with Trump.
In addition to the hazards of failing to measure up to Abe, political analysts have questioned the wisdom of holding the summit at all. While Tokyo attaches prestige to being early in the queue to meet Trump, there may be an advantage in not drawing the attention of his administration, which has taken aim at close allies and trading partners, including Canada and Mexico.
“The US runs a large trade deficit with Japan, and the yen is still close to a historic low against the dollar. There is an argument that the best thing Ishiba can do for his country right now is to stay off Washington’s radar for as long as possible,” said one Tokyo-based diplomat close to the preparations for the summit.
The meeting is expected to cover some areas where Ishiba can expect relatively low friction. The prime minister is likely to pledge to increase imports of US liquefied natural gas and emphasise the large flow of Japanese direct investment as well as co-operation on artificial intelligence and other areas of sensitive technology.
If pressed on military spending, said analysts, Ishiba may promise future increases, and will highlight the efforts Tokyo has already made to strengthen its self-defences.
But there were several uncomfortable areas where Trump could direct the talks off script, said diplomats, such as calling on Ishiba to further distance Japan from China or to push him to take a harder stance on his proposal of an “Asian Nato”.
The meeting also comes after Nippon Steel’s foiled $15bn takeover of US Steel, which both former US president Joe Biden and Trump opposed during the presidential campaign but both companies had backed. Biden attributed his decision to national security concerns, but the move rankled in Tokyo, casting Japan as a foreign competitor rather than a friendly rescuer of a crumbling US industrial giant, and Nippon hopes Trump could resuscitate the deal.
Preparations in Tokyo have involved days of anxious brainstorming of potential diplomatic crises or mercurial demands, officials said. Hundreds of hypothetical conversational threads have been mapped out, according to one.
Trump’s suggestions that the US could seize Greenland and the Panama Canal meant “almost anything” could arise in a US-Japan summit, said Japanese officials. The US president’s summit this week with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and shock proposal to take control of Gaza, sent Japanese officials scrambling to ready the prime minister for the unexpected.
But analysts pointed out that the folksy Ishiba shared certain characteristics with Trump that could help the two find common ground. Both are popular with the general public and built their political images as outsiders.
“You can imagine situations at this summit that could require grace, patience and sangfroid. The question is whether Ishiba can deliver that,” said Tobias Harris, founder of political risk advisory Japan Foresight.
Harris added that aside from avoiding a diplomatic disaster, the risk for Ishiba was returning from Washington with a bigger problem than he left.
“Alliance management does not look like something the US administration is interested in spending time and energy on right now,” Harris said. “Whatever reassurances Ishiba gets may be short term . . . even if he and Trump get along and it goes OK, that doesn’t rule out chaos and uncertainty down the road.”