‘Normal’ first summit between Japan’s Ishiba and Trump deemed a success

The United States appears satisfied with ally Japan’s goal to steadily increase its defence spending, following a meeting in Washington last week between Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and President Donald Trump that is seen by observers as a success.

Though trade tariffs were not mentioned in a joint statement from the talks between Ishiba and Trump at the White House, Japan is still expected to be concerned about such levies.

In their first summit on Friday, the leaders affirmed Washington’s commitment towards Japan’s defence, including through nuclear deterrence, to counter China. They also discussed further multilateral defence cooperation.

While pushing Tokyo to invest in American energy and technology, Trump made clear he wanted to slash Washington’s US$68 billion deficit in the trade balance between the two countries, arguing the issue could be resolved without tariffs.

Before the meeting, there were concerns in Japan that Trump might demand that Tokyo increase its defence spending significantly. At the talks, however, Trump did not demand any such increase and instead praised Japan’s plan to raise defence spending to 2 per cent of Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Japan had long capped defence expenditure at 1 per cent of GDP but in late 2022 pledged to gradually increase the level to 2 per cent by 2027.