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Few world leaders seem to get along with President Donald Trump as well as Sanae Takaichi. But the Japanese prime minister could be in for an earful when she visits the White House on Thursday, as Trump grows increasingly frustrated with the course of his war on Iran.
Takaichi, 65, will be the first leader of a major U.S. ally to meet with Trump since he demanded that a coalition of countries, including Japan, help protect the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route that Iran has effectively closed, disrupting global trade and sending energy prices soaring.
Before leaving for Washington on Wednesday, Takaichi, who has said that Japan has no plans to send naval vessels to escort ships through the strait, told lawmakers that she expected the meeting with Trump to be “very difficult.”
“It’s hard to overestimate how much is at stake for her,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies and history at Temple University’s Japan campus. “And she’s walking a tightrope because the Japanese public does not support the U.S. war in the Middle East at all.”
Japan depends heavily on the United States as an export market and for security in an increasingly militarized region.
“Given that Japan is in an ever-riskier neighborhood with nuclear saber-rattling in Pyongyang and China’s regional hegemonic ambitions, it’s absolutely crucial for Japan to keep the alliance strong,” Kingston told NBC News in an interview.
Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister, got off to a strong start with Trump shortly after taking office in October, appearing with him as he addressed U.S. troops on an aircraft carrier at Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan. She has also benefited from her mentorship by the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was close with Trump.
Highly popular at home, Takaichi led her Liberal Democratic Party to win a historic supermajority in the lower house of parliament in a snap election last month.
Takaichi’s three-day Washington visit had been ideally timed to take place before Trump’s long-planned trip to China, allowing her to be “the last voice in his ear” before his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Kingston said. But Trump delayed his China trip this week so he could focus on Iran, and his meeting with Takaichi is now likely to be dominated by the Islamic Republic instead.
Japan has avoided either endorsing or directly criticizing the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that began Feb. 28 and has instead called for de-escalation. The conflict is highly unpopular in Japan, whose post-World War II constitution restricts its military to self-defense.
Though Takaichi, a hard-line conservative, has accelerated Japan’s defense spending and wants to revise its pacifist constitution, “she’s not going to be sending a Japanese naval vessel into the shooting gallery of the Straits of Hormuz,” as putting Japanese troops in harm’s way could imperil her national security goals, Kingston said.
Instead, he said Takaichi “has to figure out, what can she do that will be enough to placate President Trump?”
She might offer to help with minesweeping, Kingston said, as Japan is highly concerned about the disruption to energy supplies from the Strait of Hormuz blockade, which has hit Asia especially hard. Japan, which imports almost all of its crude oil from the Middle East, began releasing a record 80 million barrels of oil from state reserves on Monday, about a 45-day supply.
For Japan, the widening conflict in the Middle East is also worrisome because it takes U.S. attention away from the Indo-Pacific, where China is considered a growing security threat by Tokyo and other U.S. allies. Some U.S. troops are being shifted to the Middle East from Japan, which normally hosts about 50,000.
Takaichi, a strong supporter of the Beijing-claimed island of Taiwan, has been embroiled in a diplomatic spat with China since November, when she told lawmakers that a Chinese attack on the self-ruling democracy could prompt a military response from Tokyo. Takaichi has refused to accede to China’s demands that she retract her “egregious” statement, which was in line with Japan’s longtime stance but unusually explicit for a sitting prime minister.
On Thursday, Japan rejected a U.S. assessment that Takaichi’s remarks marked a “significant shift” in policy, with the government’s top spokesperson telling reporters that it was “not accurate.”
Iran will also compete with Japan’s desire to discuss trade, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down many of Trump’s global tariffs last month. Japan says it wants to maintain its existing trade deal with the U.S., which set a tariff rate of 15% on most Japanese goods in exchange for a pledge by Japan to invest $550 billion in the U.S.
Kingston cautioned that Takaichi’s meeting with Trump “could go south very easily,” because “Trump is a moody guy and you have to catch him in the right mood.”
If anyone can pull it off, he said, it’s Takaichi, a veteran of Japan’s highly patriarchal politics who “has figured out how to deal with powerful men and how to get what she needs.”
