February 11, 2025
WASHINGTON – Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba offered lavish praise for U.S. President Donald Trump in their first face-to-face meeting on Friday, taking great pains to get closer to the president. Ishiba put aside his own beliefs in policy debate and sought to curry Trump’s favor for the good of Japan, which seems to have paid off.
Liberal with praise
After being welcomed into the Oval Office, Ishiba began reciting carefully prepared words of adulation.
“You’re going to pursue your signature initiative of ‘make America great again,’ and also you will redouble your efforts to bring peace to the world, and that is why God saved you in that experience,” Ishiba said, referring to Trump having miraculously survived an assassination attempt in July.
Ishiba then referred to his signature policy of regional revitalization and compared it with Trump’s focus on “forgotten” people, or the white working class.
“In Japan as well, in many of these suburban areas and rural areas we do see many forgotten men and women, and I do hope to bring dreams and hope for them,” Ishiba said.
When Ishiba said he wished to build an intimate relationship with Trump like what the president had with the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump replied warmly, saying, “Thank you very much … He [Abe] had tremendous respect for you.”
At the joint press conference that followed, Trump presented Ishiba with a photo book, whose cover showed Trump raising his fist in the air after he was shot at. “I think that he [Ishiba] is going to be a great prime minister,” Trump said. “I think he’s a very strong man, very, very strong … I wish he was a little bit weaker than that, but that’s what I got.”
Choosing a diplomatic style
“I was criticized for being obsequious and pathetic, but if flattery works, then there’s nothing better than that,” wrote Abe in his memoirs, explaining the importance of getting as close as possible to Trump. Abe added that “it would not have been in Japan’s interests” if he had come out with logical or policy arguments, which Trump dislikes, and if this had then caused Japan-U.S. relations to deteriorate.
Ishiba initially was reluctant to take this approach, telling The Yomiuri Shimbun in a December interview, “Mr. Abe had his way of doing things, and I want to do things my way.”
Ishiba’s remark was only due in part to the fact that he spent a long time outside the mainstream during the Abe administration. He also did not want Japan to be seen as America’s lackey. Nor did he want to go along with the United States on every issue, even though it is an ally, due to his personal belief that each policy should be judged based on merits.
At the same time, Ishiba was frustrated that his government had been reduced to a minority, and that he was unable to put forward his own policies, such as a revision of the Japan-U.S. agreement on the status of U.S. armed forces in Japan.
‘No choice’
At every chance, including at study sessions that picked up at the start of this year, politicians, bureaucrats and business leaders have urged Ishiba to match Trump’s pace.
A high-ranking official told Ishiba that the prime minister could demonstrate his strength if he pushed his own proposals, such as a trillion-dollar investment in the United States in line with Trump’s “America First” policy.
Ishiba gradually came to accept this, and just before the summit, he told those around him: “I’ll keep heaping praise on him and make him feel good. It may not be like me, but I have no choice.”
At first, Ishiba was reluctant to hold a joint press conference with Trump and considered talking to the press on his own, but at Friday’s joint press conference, which he attended at the request of the United States, Ishiba was not confronted with any specific demands for more defense spending nor with any tariffs as he had feared. On the contrary, the prime minister managed to have the joint statement include the security and economic cooperation promises that Japan wanted. He has cleared the first hurdle.