Are US-Japan relations on the rocks?

Be it personally criticizing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, criticizing British Prime Minister Theresa May’s handling of Brexit as “foolish” and a “disaster” or repeatedly complaining that NATO members are not spending enough on their own defense, Trump has put U.S. allies on guard. Even in the Indo-Pacific, Trump has pressured Seoul to increase its contributions to the alliance and said he wants to withdraw troops from South Korea.

Japan, for the most part, has been a notable exception. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has developed probably the closest and most time-intensive personal relationship with President Trump of any major democratic ally, and for the most part he has been spared the level of criticism that the president has leveled at a number of other U.S. allies. The Japanese government also appreciates Washington’s more robust defense posture in the Indo-Pacific, which parallels the views in Japan’s 2020 defense white paper that China is the region’s greatest security threat.

The relationship between the national security establishments in Washington and Tokyo appears to be close and trusting, matched only by Japan’s relationship with Australia. Even the Trump administration’s signature strategy for dealing with China – the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy – was borrowed enthusiastically from planners in Japan’s foreign ministry in 2017. To the likely ire of Democrats in Washington who follow Japan, an anonymous Japanese senior official wrote an op-ed in The American Interest in April praising Trump and arguing that his reelection would be better for Tokyo.

There are structural and ideological reasons for the Japanese government’s readiness to work closely with the Trump administration. But it’s Abe’s patience and personal diplomacy with Trump that have likely impressed European diplomats incapable of getting their leaders to do the same. Though perhaps not as personal as some of the criticisms against European leaders, Abe has had to weather his own list of issues with Trump, including: Steel tariffs; unilateral withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is a cornerstone of Japanese trade strategy in Asia; reported demands for a four-fold increase in payment for hosting U.S. bases in Japan; casual threats to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea, which would leave Japan exposed to the ongoing North Korean threat; the president’s lack of interest in multilateral meetings such as the East Asia Summit and the G-7 that are crucial to Japan’s diplomacy.

Yet Abe has never criticized Trump publicly as his European and Canadian counterparts have. Instead, he has patiently tutored the president on diplomatic and security issues during long golf games; tried to bridge his European and American counterparts at sometimes contentious G-7 meetings; worked with member states in the TPP to keep a place at the table for the United States while they moved ahead with the new Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership; and brushed aside opposition criticism of the United States in the Diet. This “yosh yosh” (“now now…”) diplomacy has been good for Japan, the United States and even Europe.

But suddenly, in the span of only a few months, the alliance appears weaker in ways that no one anticipated. In June, Japan suspended, then cancelled, its planned deployment of two Aegis Ashore systems, a ballistic missile defense system. The surprise cancellation rocked an alliance used to close coordination, particularly one that carries operational benefits to both American and Japanese national security interests alike.