Trump was asked by a reporter why he did not tell allies in Europe and Asia in advance of the US-Israel attack on Iran during a news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House on Friday.<\/p>\n
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Trump cited Pearl Harbor to defend his decision saying, \u201cWho knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn\u2019t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the remarks, social media reaction has ranged from accusations of ignorance and rudeness by the US president to claims that he does not see Japan as an equal partner. There were calls for Japan to protest Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n
Tsuneo Watanabe, a senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, said in an opinion piece in the Nikkei newspaper on Saturday that the remarks signalled Trump is \u201cnot bound by existing American common sense\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get the impression that the comment was intended to bring the Japanese reporter [who asked the question] or Ms Takaichi into complicity in order to justify his \u2018sneak attack\u2019 on Iran during diplomatic negotiations and without telling allied countries,\u201d Watanabe wrote.<\/p>\n
There is also a feeling that an unspoken understanding exists<\/a> between United States and Japanese leaders to tread carefully on the subject.<\/p>\n Both sides need each other, with Washington relying on Japan to host 50,000 troops and an array of powerful hi-tech weapons, and Japan relying on the US nuclear umbrella to deter hostile, nuclear-armed neighbours.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s post-World War II\u00a0constitution bans the use of force\u00a0except for its self-defence, but Takaichi and other officials are now seeking to expand the military\u2019s role.<\/p>\n Mixed reaction to Takaichi\u2019s response<\/p>\n Takaichi, a hardline conservative, was praised by some for not reacting to Trump\u2019s comments, letting them pass with a roll of her eyes and a glance at her ministers seated nearby.<\/p>\n The goal of her summit was to deepen ties with her most important ally, and she arrived shortly after Trump suggested Japan was among the nations that did not quickly join his call to help protect the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n Some, however, criticised Takaichi for not speaking up.<\/p>\n Hitoshi Tanaka, a former diplomat and a special adviser at the Japan Research Institute think tank, wrote on X that he felt embarrassed to see Takaichi flattering Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cAs national leaders, they are equals \u2026 To make an equal relationship is not to flatter,\u201d he said. \u201cJust doing what pleases Trump and calling it a success if you are not hurt is too sad.\u201d<\/p>\n Initially, social media placed some of the blame on the Japanese reporter who asked the question that prompted Trump\u2019s Pearl Harbor comment.<\/a><\/p>\n The reporter, Morio Chijiiwa with TV Asahi, later said on a talk show he asked the question to represent the feelings of Japanese who are not happy about Trump\u2019s one-sided attack on Iran, and because other countries, including Japan, are now being asked to help out after the US and Israel started the war.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s why I asked the question. I was meaning to say, \u2018Why didn\u2019t you tell us, why are you troubling us?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2026-03-19T164634Z_511417728_RC2N7KA8ITZG_RTRMADP_3_USA-JAPAN-1773940383.jpg\")
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, left, meets President Donald Trump [Evelyn Hockstein\/Reuters]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president\u2019s reference to Japan\u2019s 1941 attack on naval base in Hawaii has shaken the Japanese public as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1204,3471,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-536978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-asia-pacific","tag-japan","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}