President Donald Trump will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday, and much attention has gone to disputes over trade and defense spending. Yet the most important issue has remained below the radar: Taiwan.
Takaichi — a conservative “Japan First” nationalist who has called for a crackdown on illegal immigrants and more spending on her country’s military — has plenty in common with her American counterpart. And there is much for Trump to like in Japan’s policy direction, even as they continue to negotiate over automobile tariffs or the costs of keeping about 60,000 American troops stationed on the island.
Yet the new prime minister and the broader Japanese political class are deeply unsettled by the possibility that Trump is softening on China as he tries to reach a broad trade deal with President Xi Jinping, whom Trump plans to sit down with next Thursday in South Korea.
Watch to see whether Takaichi, staunchly pro-Taiwan, presses Trump at the start of his Asia swing on whether the United States will commit to defending the island in the event China attacks.
Trump changed the American consensus on China during his first presidential run, complaining about trade deficits with Beijing and its theft of intellectual property. He congratulated a newly elected Taiwanese leader over the phone before taking office, and in 2018, he imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports. Restrictions on technology exports nearly destroyed the telecoms giant Huawei. He vacillated over the course of his first term, praising Xi at times while criticizing China strongly over covid-19.
His second term remains a mixed bag. No country has been hit harder by Trump’s global trade war than China, and he is threatening new 100 percent tariffs in retaliation for Beijing restricting the export of crucial rare earth minerals. At the same time, he loosened a Biden-era ban on the sale of critical artificial intelligence chips to China and reached a deal to transfer ownership of the popular app TikTok, allowing its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to retain a stake. The concessions all seemed aimed at securing a far-reaching agreement with Xi.
Then there’s Taiwan. Trump has halted a $400 million arms package to the self-ruled democratic island. He has also not used any of his annual $1 billion drawdown authority to send weapons to the Taiwanese and discouraged a visit to the U.S. by President Lai Ching-te. A planned June meeting between senior American and Taiwanese defense officials has been postponed.
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