Singapore: US President Donald Trump has famously reserved some of his highest praise for the world’s strongmen leaders. So it was a good sign for Japan’s new female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, that Trump was already effusive with praise ahead of their first meeting on Tuesday morning, saying he had heard “phenomenal things” about her.
With the red carpet rolled out at Tokyo’s Akasaka Palace, a fleet of US cars parked out the front, and a pledge by Takaichi to accelerate the country’s defence spending gilding Trump’s arrival, Japan pulled off the kind of diplomatic coup that has defeated other nations: securing adulation, however superficial, where others have been scorned and humiliated.
President Donald Trump, left, and Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi shake hands during a signing ceremony at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo.Credit: AP
“I want to just let you know, any time you have any question, any doubt, anything you want, any favours you need, anything I can do to help Japan, we will be there. We are an ally at the strongest level,” Trump told Takaichi.
Granted, this was Trump on foreign soil, where even he has not strayed from the norms of dignity and respect to the host. Nonetheless, it was as strong an endorsement as Takaichi could have hoped for. Trump feted her as being poised to become “one of the greatest” prime ministers, adding that the late Japanese leader Shinzo Abe would be happy to see her in the top job.
Trump’s early fondness for Takaichi, an ultraconservative national security hawk who has styled herself as Japan’s “Iron Lady” and Abe’s protegee, is due in large part to her closeness to the former prime minister.
In his first term, Trump found a kindred spirit in Abe, with the pair bonding over golf and forming a genuine friendship before he was assassinated in 2022. “He was one of my favourites,” Trump said early this week.
Takaichi, too, leaned into the flattery as they greeted each other on Tuesday, praising the US president on his peace-making efforts between Thailand and Cambodia and in the Middle East.
“I myself am so impressed and inspired by you, Mr President,” she said.
