Accusations that Japan is free-riding on U.S. security guarantees overlook the immense strategic and geographical value of U.S. military bases in Japan, including Okinawa and Yokosuka.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump sees China as the biggest threat and the top-priority for his incoming administration. He has already appointed anti-China hardliners to his national security and foreign policy cabinet positions.
East Asian nations such as Japan and Taiwan, which are located on the first island chain facing China on the very front line, are wary that Trump will demand that they increase defense spending, pay for U.S. protection, and buy more U.S.-made weapons.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the administration of former Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio decided in December of the same year to double defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), which was highly praised by the Joe Biden administration.
Trump also praised Japan’s efforts to increase defense spending in April 2024 when he met former Japanese Prime Minister Aso Taro in New York, according to a statement issued by Trump’s campaign.
But it’s unclear whether Trump will be satisfied with this.
Elbridge Colby, who served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development in the former Trump administration, said in an interview with Japan’s Public Broadcasting NHK earlier this year that Tokyo should increase its defense spending to 3 percent of GDP. Colby is frequently discussed as a potential national security figure in Trump’s second administration.
During his presidency, Trump also demanded that Japan and South Korea increase their annual funding for hosting U.S. troops in their countries to $8 billion and $5 billion, respectively, John Bolton wrote in his book “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” published in 2022.
Bolton, who served as national security adviser in the Trump administration, also warned in an interview with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in March of this year that if Trump returns to power, Japan may be forced to revise its security treaty in a way that would require it to deploy the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) in the event of an attack on the U.S. mainland.
Article 5 of the two nations’ security treaty stipulates the United States’ defense obligations to Japan in the event of an attack on Japanese territory. Meanwhile, Japan is not required to aid the U.S. in an armed conflict on the U.S. or other territory beyond Japan’s own borders.
Trump repeatedly complained that this is “unfair,” according to Bolton’s book.
The argument that Japan is a free rider on security is not something that only Trump has been voicing, but has been discussed in Washington for a long time. It’s nothing new to try to get Japan to shoulder its share of the burden in security, and Japan has done this, to some extent.
In the 1970s, the United States lost the Vietnam War after suffering many casualties, and its national power was exhausted. Meanwhile, Japan achieved remarkable economic growth and emerged as the world’s second largest economic power. As Japan’s trade surplus with the United States grew, theories that Japan was free-riding on the security treaty began to emerge, mainly in the U.S. Congress. Critics claimed that while the United States was fighting communism, Japan was unfairly taking advantage of the U.S. to enrich itself.
