Will Japan's close ties with US survive the caprice and quirks of Donald Trump?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

70% : "Kenneth Weinstein, Japan chair at the Hudson Institute, and previously nominated by Trump to be his envoy in Tokyo, also thinks Trump will recognise the value of Japan and its alliances.
65% : Through dint of his superior foreign policy expertise, personal charm, golf swing and a willingness to buy US arms, Abe managed to embed Japan as one of Trump's best allies, in the process turning his concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific into something Trump could embrace.
56% : He has promised to set import tariffs at 60% for Chinese goods, far higher than in his first term, and 10-20% for the rest of the world.
52% : Since Trump was last in power, Japanese exports to the US have risen by more than 40%.
47% : The president of the Japanese Institute for International Relations, Kenichiro Sasae, points out Japan has been one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine in the G7, applying sanctions early on.Japanese officials argue if the defining challenge of the 21st century is indeed the threat posed by China, that challenge is not best addressed by abandoning Ukraine since that would only weaken the US's standing in south-east Asia.
44% : Gradually coaxing Japan away from its postwar pacifist tendencies, Abe was seen as the textbook example of how to manage Trump, even if Abe was far from getting all his own way on free trade.
43% : Trump may also eye the five-year agreement, not due to be renegotiated until 2027, that requires Japan to pay $9.2bn for the privilege of stationing 50,000 US troops in Japan, mainly at the strategic base of Okinawa.
38% : There is nothing good about it," said Yasushi Watanabe, a professor at Keio University.Mori, who also previously worked in the foreign ministry, said: "I'm not quite sure how, but the bureaucracy will attempt to persuade Trump to make bilateral tariff exemptions for particular countries, and Japan has this one strength in terms of economic relations with the US, and that is we can say: 'We're the number one investor in your country for five consecutive years, so why don't you give us a tariff exemption?
36% : All of this discomforts Japan, one of the great global advocates of free trade.
36% : "The primary task for the security establishment is to assemble a case that does not just ward off the worst damage of a tariff war, but convinces Trump that growing military integration between regional allies, including Japan, is the best way to strengthen his hand against China.
35% : His first phone call with Trump lasted a relatively brief five minutes, and Trump, citing legal constraints, has found no time in his schedule to meet Ishiba before his inauguration.
35% : Much will depend on how heavily Trump imposes tariffs and for what purpose.
32% : "The repercussions, the damage, would be huge, because if Trump is so willing to abandon allies, then he does not fully understand the impact on Asia's future.
27% : "Trump is a man of transaction and compromise," Sasae said.
27% : "I don't think Trump would break all that up," Sasae said.
24% : Japan's complex defence alliances built up over years as protection against China could be put at risk in a Trump-launched trade warArguably, no country in Asia has better reason to be in a state of anxiety over the return of Donald Trump to the White House than Japan, since the US has been the linchpin of Japanese foreign and security policy since the second world war.
22% : Like Ishida, Sasae hopes that rather than ushering in a more protectionist world, Trump's tariff threats will instead prove to be just his opening bid to secure a US-China trade deal, something Trump did agree in 2020.

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