Name: The Oval Office meeting Japan’s prime minister can’t afford to get wrong | DW News
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Imagine being a world leader stepping into a meeting with the President of the United States, knowing you face a demand that goes not just against your country's laws, but

Yet refusing him could fracture your country's most important alliance.

That's exactly where Japan's Prime Minister, Sanaya Takaichi finds herself as she heads to Washington to meet President Donald Trump.

With the Iran war disrupting global oil flows and hammering Japan's economy, Trump just can't seem to convince America's allies, including Tokyo, to help his efforts.

In his frustration, he claims he doesn't need them anyway.

And meetings like this one coming up with Takaichi present an opportunity to apply pressure.

Now, the visit was scheduled before the war and would have been a chance for Takaichi to celebrate her recent election victory and to reaffirm the U.S.

Now it's turned into a test of how Japan can navigate a global crisis.

So why can't Japan give Trump what he wants militarily?

To help us make sense of this, we're joined by one of the leading experts on Japanese foreign policy, Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations.

But the very short answer is Japan has laws on the book books that restrict the use of the Self Defense Forces, except for under very specific conditions.

This derives, of course, from the government's interpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.

I intend to make it clear that under Japanese law, what can be done will be done, but

So she is not in a position of negotiating with the President.

And she said this already in the Diet in the Japanese parliament in response to questioning that under the current circumstances, Japan would be unable to deploy its military.

And let me just give you what the specific circumstance is, and

Japan has in the past sent minesweepers to the Gulf, and

it did so in coalition, a coalition led by the United States.

But it was in the aftermath of the conflict, not during combat or a war.

So Japan is not in a position to do anything while the war is ongoing.

But Trump typically won't just take no for an answer.

So how will Takaichi approach this, especially being the first leader to visit Washington among the allies Trump has called out.

The Japanese are going to be exploring with the Trump administration the purchase of Alaskan oil.

In other words, this is something the Trump administration has advocated for in the past and that is Japanese investment in the infrastructure in Alaska, including the consideration of a pipeline even that would bring Alaskan crude to Tokyo and to other places in Asia.

Not just the oil itself, but the infrastructure support.

So what is in the news in Japan today is that the government is working on an offer that would say, all right, we will consider, let's consider Alaskan oil and let's, you know, this would be good for Japan, diversify our sources.

Less risky comes, you know, across the Pacific, not all the way across the globe, but

also it would help the U S Japan partnership.

Takaichi is likely to build on this issue on which both Washington and Tokyo might find common ground, especially over Beijing, Beijing's posture towards Taiwan, which it considers its own territory.

So she has a position on the cross straits relationship that is supportive of Taiwan.

She has not in her political career made a case out of criticizing Beijing.

But a lot of her comments have to do with Japanese defenses, have to do with Chinese behavior in the region or towards Taiwan and are seen through that lens for her.

So I think it's important when we think about the current turmoil between Japan and China is to position that first.

She's not ardently anti China, but she is not afraid.

She's quite hawkish on Japan's own defense needs and the military requirements that China's growing military power require for the Self Defense Forces themselves.

The two leaders have already met in the past, but

this time they'll be at the Oval Office, which has been a theater of sorts when seen.

The Japanese leader will definitely be looking to avoid featuring in another dramatic White House episode.

I think for Takaichi, of course, it's really important.

And she was riding high because the first Trump visit was when President Trump last fall went to Tokyo on his way to the APEC meeting where he was scheduled to meet with Xi Jinping.

She had just been elected Prime Minister of Japan.

And she was hosting the American president, which is a big deal, right, for any new Japanese prime minister.

That meeting with the president, he came to Tokyo, it was a bit of a love fest.

I mean, the optics were fantastically positive for the alliance.

They stood together as he went off to see Xi Jinping on the top of an American aircraft carrier.

She looked a little bit like somebody out of Top Gun.

She looked very comfortable in that military setting.

It was very interesting for me to watch, not only as a Japanese woman in leadership, but

also just as a Japanese prime minister, the level of comfort she had.

So it conveyed what the Japanese wanted to convey as, as, as China was preparing to meet with Trump.

But it was also a very good personal dynamic.

I think this time it's more substance, substance, substance.

Whether that good personal diplomacy, that vibe will continue to feed into the optics, this time will be interesting to watch.

This is harder territory because this is really, this is where there are real constraints on what she can do.

Even though she has a massive electoral victory behind her, she can't change Japanese law when it comes to the deployment of military forces.

And she has been very clear in Tokyo on this.

She is not at the moment considering any kind of dispatch of the Self Defense Forces.

If the war ends, then there's a maybe in that statement right at the end of the combat, at the conflict.

But I think as long as this goes on, she's pretty safely protected at home by law.

But whether or not President Trump appreciates that or not, I don't know.

And in the worst case scenario, what other options does Japan have, especially as the Iran war and the resulting economic strains continue?

I think it's interesting to say that the debates that are in the Diet are largely about Takaichi coming to see President Trump, of course, but

they're also about the relationship between Tokyo and Iran.

And this is a relationship that most many don't really appreciate, but

there is a long standing relationship between Tehran and Tokyo.

Not sure it gives Japan a lot of leverage, but

the conversation in Japan at the moment is why isn't Takaichi negotiating with Iran for safe passage through the Gulf of Hormuz?

I suspect because she wants to come and get her discussions with President Trump out of the way first before Japan is perceived as compromising, you know, the, the situation in a way that the United States might not be pleased about.

But as you may know, several countries have negotiated with Tehran.

India, first and foremost, Pakistan, I think Turkey.

And so there have been several ships that have gotten safe passage Iran.

Some of the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard in Tehran have been on Japanese television, you know, interviewed by the National Broadcasting nhk.

And they said, of course we would consider, if Japan is not supporting the American war, we would consider safe passage for Japan.

it's not just about the trip to Washington, but about the larger trade offs for Japan.

In thinking through how it responds to this conflict.

Japan relationship has a long history with multiple elements, meaning this meeting will go well beyond the Iran war.