Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is due to meet U.S. President Donald Trump for the second time on 19 March. Their first meeting in October 2025 came just six days after Takaichi took office as Japan’s first woman prime minister. Leaning heavily on her status as protégé and ideological successor of Shinzo Abe, the late prime minister known for his close relationship with Trump, Takaichi notched a win as she and Trump hailed a “new golden age” for the alliance. Much has changed since the leaders’ first meeting, not least Takaichi’s resounding electoral victory on 8 February. Many other developments, however, have compounded Japan’s resurgent sense of vulnerability.

Tensions between China and Japan escalated after Beijing reacted furiously to Takaichi’s 7 November comments in parliament. The prime minister declared that a war over Taiwan might constitute a “survival-threatening situation” under Japan’s security laws, allowing Japan’s military, the Self-Defense Forces, to support the U.S. armed forces. Trump’s failure to offer vocal support for Takaichi in the ongoing diplomatic contretemps with China has disappointed Tokyo and heightened concerns that Trump seeks a deal with Beijing that could leave Japan out in the cold. Trump is set to travel to Beijing on 31 March.

The recent U.S. National Security Strategy and National Defence Strategy have aroused more misgivings in Tokyo about U.S. commitment to its Asian alliances. While the new doctrines highlight the U.S. intention to reinforce deterrence along the first-island chain, including Japan, they no longer cite China as a strategic competitor, instead prioritising the Western Hemisphere and homeland security. Washington’s current mantra is about burden sharing and the need for allies to assume primary responsibility for their own defence. Thus far, Takaichi’s long-held aspiration to bolster Japan’s military and her pledge to reach 2 per cent of GDP on defence spending a year ahead of schedule seem to have placated the U.S., but Tokyo still falls short of Washington’s demand for 3.5 per cent spending or the “gold standard” of 5 per cent. 

Lastly, the evolving conflict in the Middle East exposes Japan’s reliance on Middle Eastern imports, which account for some 95 per cent of its oil supplies, with 70 per cent transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Should the conflict drag on, Tokyo would face economic shocks and inflation that could hinder Takaichi’s plans for military modernisation.

The military operations against Iran also cast into relief the growing discrepancy between Japanese and U.S. approaches to international affairs. Unlike Trump’s America, Japan remains committed to a rules-based order grounded in international law and regularly voices its opposition, in the context of the Indo-Pacific and Ukraine, to “unilateral use of force to change the status quo”. Takaichi faces a delicate task, not only in building her rapport with Trump while speaking “candidly” about the conflict in the Middle East, but also reinforcing the U.S. alliance while preserving the normative basis of Japan’s foreign policy.