Donald needs a Tokyo bromance Shinzo Abe offered sumo and security

Donald Trump doesn’t have many political friends — but Shinzo Abe was an exception. The first world leader to meet the then President-elect in Trump Tower, Japan’s prime minister maintained a remarkably warm relationship with his US counterpart, with the pair bonding over sumo wrestling and golf. Shigeru Ishiba is no Abe: and not just because he prefers train spotting to four irons. When Trump won his second term in November, Ishiba gave the expected congratulations, but their first in-person meeting did not occur until last Friday. In contrast to the warmth Abe always brought to such meetings, the first summit between the allies was closer to a no-nonsense business meeting.

Among other things, Japanese social media users noted that Ishiba looked rather awkward next to the imposing Trump, with the Prime Minister even neglecting to unbutton his suit jacket while sitting down. Such gaffes are rather common with Ishiba, but fashion sense was the least of his worries over the weekend. The most pressing item on the docket was convincing Trump to leave Japan out of his next round of new tariffs. Tokyo is also unhappy over the Biden administration blocking Nippon Steel’s plans to buy US Steel, though on this Trump agrees with his predecessor in the White House. And if that hints at economic trouble ahead, it speaks equally vividly to turbulent dynamics within Japan’s ruling party — and, perhaps, to a geopolitical future where Japan moves further and further from its erstwhile US partner.

In the near term, Ishiba will go home happy he hasn’t made things worse for Japan. Showering lavish praise on Trump’s personal qualities, suggesting he’d been “chosen by God” after his brush with a sniper’s bullet, he also stressed that Japan has been the US’s biggest foreign direct investor over the last five years. The President, for his part, expressed his love for Japan, but was quick to note that Washington’s trade deficit with Tokyo must be cut. Trump also responded in the affirmative to press questions if Japan would be included among his tariffs should no improvement be seen. On the Nippon Steel issue, he stated that the Japanese company would not fully own US Steel, but could “invest heavily” into it.

These were more or less temporary answers to complex economic questions — questions which will surely test Tokyo-DC relations over the next four years. It’s tempting, here, to return to the ebullient Abe, and wonder whether Japan might be better prepared to face Trump 2.0 if he hadn’t been assassinated in 2022. That would be wrong. Quite aside from the fact that Abe had already stepped down as leader of his country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in 2020, the fact is that Abe and Ishiba are two very different political creatures. Foreigners often hold the mistaken impression that, because the LDP has stayed in power almost constantly for the last seven decades, very little in Japanese politics changes. That could not be further from the truth.

While the LDP indeed usually runs things, it is split into multiple factions, each with a distinct ideological flavour. Abe, for instance, came from the now-defunct Seiwa Kai faction, which promoted Japanese nationalism and was notably conservative. Ishiba, however, has always been against factionalism within the LDP, is less of a nationalist than Abe, and has his own ideas of how foreign policy should be conducted. While Abe was very hawkish on issues like China and North Korea, Ishiba believes in using diplomacy to de-escalate regional security issues. He is a former defence minister, and is famous for having an encyclopaedic knowledge of military technology, but advocates for cautious moves that are less likely to upset Japan’s neighbours.

Ishiba won enough votes within the LDP last year to become the party’s leader, following a major slush fund scandal and the resignation of outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Having always been critical of such circles, Ishiba painted himself as a reformer, while some political observers have even referred to him as an idealist. That’s clear enough given his support for pie-in-the-sky policies like an Asian version of Nato and nuclear weapons sharing with the United States. The Japanese public are obviously unimpressed by such fantasies, giving his government dismal approval ratings, with the LDP coalition recently losing its majority in Japan’s lower house for the first time in 15 years.

In short, then, Ishiba is under immense pressure to prove that he is a competent prime minister. Yet beyond these domestic challenges — quite aside from Japan’s weak yen and infamously low birthrate — his idiosyncratic foreign policy also has vast geopolitical consequences. It’s uncertain how long Ishiba will remain Prime Minister, but for the time being Washington must take his distinctive worldview seriously, especially when it comes to the threat of China. During his Friday summit, certainly, Ishiba made the right noises, supporting “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” while once again claiming sovereignty over the disputed Senkaku Islands.

In practice, though, his recent actions suggest that Japan is moving closer to Beijing. The prime minister began courting Xi Jinping late last year, stating during a leader-level summit that Japan and China have a relationship that holds “significance beyond [the] bilateral dimension”. Ahead of Ishiba’s recent trip to the White House, meanwhile, top LDP officials met with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing to discuss China removing bans on Japanese seafood imports. That may sound like a minor trade dispute. But with Trump potentially levelling new tariffs on Japan, Ishiba may look across the South China Sea for more reliable partners. Quite aside from Abe, this is a different tone to his immediate predecessor Kishida, who was consistent in calling Beijing a threat to Japan’s interests.

Trump, on the other hand, has filled his cabinet with China hawks. One good example came last week, when secretary of state Marco Rubio took aim at Beijing for exercising “unacceptable” influence and control over the Panama Canal. During his confirmation hearing a few weeks earlier, Rubio also warned of Washington’s “unbalanced relationship” with China, referring to the country as “the biggest threat” to American interests. Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security advisor, echoes these sentiments, affirming that the US will leverage existing Indo-Pacific partnerships to curb Chinese interests.

Between Trump and Ishiba, then, we see two leaders singing very different tunes on the People’s Republic. For the White House, the worst-case scenario here would be if Japan strengthened its relations with Beijing, which could lead to greater disagreements on security issues. Stronger economic ties with China might make Tokyo more reluctant to take an aggressive stance against regional CCP influence, anathema to hardliners in Washington. Recall that tens of thousands of American troops are stationed across Japan, ready to go to war, even as Ishiba has been notably sceptical of their deployment. Among other things, he’s criticised the aftermath of a 2004 military helicopter crash, which saw the area locked down by US investigators.

For the moment, though, a major rupture seems unlikely. Quite aside from the warm words during that White House summit, there’s 80 years of history to contend with. The general consensus is that a robust US presence is necessary to maintain Japan’s national security. Along with South Korea, indeed, Japan is America’s most important ally in East Asia, and all three countries serve as a bulwark against threats from China, North Korea and Russia. Besides, Ishiba’s personal views notwithstanding, not everyone in his party is as doubtful, and the premier would face significant domestic pushback if he tried to rip up the alliance altogether.

In the long term, the status quo needs work. As the ruckus over US Steel implies, that starts with economics. If the US can cut its trade deficit with Japan, Trump will be less inclined to impose new tariffs. The President said as much over the weekend, even as there’s a stark political dimension here too: avoiding a trade war with Washington would give Japan less reason to cosy up to China, especially in industries like cars and semiconductors. To be sure, that wouldn’t be a panacea. Because Japanese automotive, electronics and banking firms still have considerable investments in Mexico and Canada, factories there would still be affected by Trump’s tariffs.

Even so, it’s obvious that keeping Trump happy could do wonders for Ishiba’s freedom of movement, not least on foreign affairs. Beyond his position on Taiwan, which looks to be a largely unchanged continuation of US solidarity, the President seems keen on restarting diplomacy with North Korea, something the Biden administration mostly ignored. Should new engagement happen, the Japanese prime minister could prove his worth as an ally by supporting the negotiations. That wouldn’t be easy: the DPRK’s abductions of Japanese citizens through the Seventies and Eighties remains unsurprisingly contentious, with the aging relatives of abductees are desperate for a breakthrough. All the same, Japan maintains some of the strictest sanctions in the world on North Korea. And if denuclearisation is impossible — as it increasingly seems to be — Ishiba could dangle sanction relief as a way of getting a measure of arms control from Kim Jong Un.

There’s also a wild card scenario. Trump has always seen US troops abroad as an expensive investment, and is strongly pushing American allies to pull their weight. Ishiba, for his part, wants less US involvement in his country, and for Tokyo to have more control over its national defence. Despite their very different backgrounds, this could turn out to be a surprising area of agreement. Just don’t expect chats about trainspotting anytime soon.

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