Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will sit down with U.S. President Donald Trump on the 22nd, U.S. local time, for the first time in six months. With Washington expected to intensify pressure on Tokyo over investment in the United States ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, attention is on whether Takaichi can deflect those demands by pointing to Japan's existing contributions to the American economy.
Takaichi will travel to New York starting on the 21st and hold talks with Trump the following day, according to Japanese media including the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun. It will be the first summit between the two leaders since Takaichi visited Washington in March. At the Group of Seven summit in June, the two spoke for only five minutes.
Takaichi plans to emphasize the $550 billion (761 trillion won) in U.S. investment that Japan pledged in response to American tariff measures, along with the jobs that investment is expected to create, Nikkei reported. Japanese investments decided so far include industrial synthetic diamonds, crude oil infrastructure, gas-fired power facilities, small modular reactors (SMRs) and natural gas power plants. The SMR and natural gas power projects, intended to supply electricity to artificial intelligence data centers, were announced by the Japanese government immediately after the March summit.
A senior Japanese government official told Nikkei that the summit would address the investments Japan had promised to the U.S. side. The Takaichi government plans to have the public and private sectors invest more than 370 trillion yen across 17 strategic sectors including AI and semiconductors, and it intends to stress that this policy, linked to investment in the United States, will generate new businesses there. Nikkei reported on the 18th of this month that the Japanese and U.S. governments are considering semiconductor plant construction as a third U.S. investment package.
The cost of stationing U.S. forces in Japan could also come up. Washington has been asking allies to raise defense spending to about 3.5% of gross domestic product. Tied to that, an expansion of Japan's defense budget and of its share of costs related to U.S. military bases in the country could be put on the agenda. Japan, however, is in a difficult position to discuss specific defense spending figures because it is preparing to revise three security-related documents, including the National Security Strategy, at the end of the year, Nikkei said. Tokyo therefore aims to explain its contribution to the U.S. economy through investment and its plans to strengthen defense capabilities, in order to hold back demands for a bigger burden.
Another question is whether Takaichi will directly call for the withdrawal of sanctions on Tomoko Akane, the first Japanese president of the International Criminal Court, whom the Trump administration has placed under sanctions.
The war with Iran and relations with China are also likely to feature in the talks. Earlier this year, Trump expressed dissatisfaction that Japan and other allies had not responded to requests for military support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Takaichi, for her part, highlighted a pledge to buy more American oil at the March summit. The timing is also notable: the meeting comes ahead of a U.S.-China summit set for the 24th in Washington. Takaichi is expected to gauge Washington's intentions and convey Japan's position on China in advance.
"We expect a substantive meeting," a senior White House official told the Asahi Shimbun. "Japan is a very important ally, and its importance is all the greater coming just before Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States."
The U.S. State Department announced on the 21st that the foreign ministers of South Korea, the United States and Japan will also hold trilateral talks on the 22nd, according to Kyodo News. The Yomiuri Shimbun reported a day earlier that the three foreign ministers would meet in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly and sign a memorandum of understanding on cooperation to expand maritime use and energy supply in the Arctic region.
