Wondering why Japan isn’t treaty-obligated to protect the U.S., President Trump asked, ‘Who makes these deals?’ Well, President Eisenhower, for starters.
President Trump, expostulating in the Oval Office on Friday:
You know, in Japan, we have a deal. Which is a very interesting one. And I love Japan. We have a great relationship with Japan. But we have an interesting deal with Japan. We have to protect them, but they don’t have to protect us. Did you know that? That’s the way the deal reads. We have to protect Japan, and by the way, they make a fortune with us economically, there’s another case, but we have to protect Japan, but under no circumstances do they have to protect us. I actually ask, ‘Who makes these deals?’
Dear God, Mr. President, please crack a history book once in a while.
The United States of America made that deal. In fact, the U.S. government imposed that deal upon Japan.
After Japan surrendered to the U.S. in World War II, the U.S. military occupied the country for seven years, during which time the existing Japanese military was completely disbanded. A new constitution, written by Americans, went into effect in 1947, and Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution declares: “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. . . . Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”
But by 1954, amid Cold War tensions, the U.S. and new Japanese leaders agreed on the establishment of the “Japan Self-Defense Forces.” In 1960, the U.S. and Japanese governments signed the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan, which permits the presence of U.S. military bases on Japanese soil and commits the two nations to defend each other if one or the other is attacked “in the territories under the administration of Japan.” In other words, Japan is obligated to defend our forces if they come under attack on Japanese soil. But because Japan’s military has an extremely limited capacity to project power beyond its borders, it is not obligated to or expected to send military assistance to defend the United States elsewhere on the globe.
Nonetheless, in November 2001, Japan dispatched the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, marking Japan’s first overseas military action during a combat operation. In Iraq, the Ground Self-Defense Forces deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2006, and some argued their missions went beyond the promised “noncombat” roles.
For a long time, some American hawks have argued it was time to allow Japan’s military to grow larger and take a stronger role in international security operations. (National Review’s cover story in July 2005 was “Unleash Japan: Why the U.S Needs Tokyo to Abandon Its Pacifism and Counterbalance China.”) The Japanese government has been increasing its defense budget in recent years.
Traditionally, Japan had spent only 1 percent of its gross domestic product on defense, but in 2022, acknowledging increasing threats to security in the region, the Japanese government aimed to raise defense-related spending to 2 percent of GDP by the 2027 fiscal year. Japan’s defense-related budget for fiscal year 2024 has expanded to 1.6 percent of GDP, and Kitamura said the government is on pace to reach that threshold by the intended deadline.
(Note that Japan has the fourth-largest economy in the world, so 1 percent of GDP in Japan is considerably larger than 1 percent of GDP for many NATO countries. With a GDP of $4.2 trillion in 2023, 2 percent would be $84 billion, roughly on par with the current military spending of the United Kingdom.) In April, then–Japanese defense minister Minoru Kihara said Japan would spend $56.7 billion on defense in the twelve months through March 2025.)
President Trump asked, “Who makes these deals?” Well, President Dwight Eisenhower negotiated it and Douglas MacArthur’s signature is on the Mutual Cooperation and Security Treaty. I’m sure if you think hard, you can come up with reasons why Eisenhower and MacArthur might have wanted the size and power of the rebuilt Japanese military to be limited, and for the Japanese forces to be incapable of projecting power beyond the country’s existing borders.
When I criticize President Trump, his supporters frequently tell me the president is playing “seven-dimensional chess,” and that there’s some sort of ultra-sophisticated ingenious strategy at work that feeble minds like mine cannot comprehend. When I see the president of the United States so mind-bogglingly ignorant of how Japan got its current constitution and why there are existing limits on the Japanese military’s ability to project power, I start to doubt how many levels of chess he’s playing.