For decades, American presidents have avoided speaking harshly about Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, eager to focus instead on deepening ties with Tokyo, which has been a steadfast ally since World War II.
Not so with President Trump.
At an otherwise congenial meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Trump invoked the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, which led the United States into World War II. He was responding to a question about why Japan and other allies had received no advance notice of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran.
“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?”
There was some laughter from the officials and journalists gathered in the room. “You believe in surprise, I think, much more so than us,” he added.
As Mr. Trump spoke, Ms. Takaichi widened her eyes and appeared to take a deep breath. She kept her arms crossed in her lap and did not speak.
The remark was the latest example of Mr. Trump’s penchant for tossing aside diplomatic norms.
After the end of World War II, President Truman used the attack on Pearl Harbor to justify American efforts to remake Japanese society and to impose a pacifist constitution. (The United States led the Allies’ occupation of Japan from 1945 until 1952.) The constitution forced Japan to renounce war and put limits on its military, making Tokyo reliant on the United States for protection.
But during the Cold War, the United States shifted its official portrayal of the attack, describing it as a historical tragedy rather than pointing fingers at Japan. American officials were eager to to keep Tokyo as an ally as communism spread in Asia, and to form security and economic pacts.
In 2016, 75 years after Imperial Japanese warplanes destroyed the Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor, President Obama visited the site of the attack with Shinzo Abe, then Japan’s prime minister, who offered condolences to “to the souls of those who lost their lives here.” Mr. Obama and Mr. Abe laid wreaths made of white peace lilies at the memorial.
Mr. Obama described in detail what occurred on the day of the attack, highlighted acts of heroism by American service members and said that the visit of Mr. Abe “reminds us of what is possible between nations and between peoples.”
Javier C. Hernández is the Tokyo bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Japan and the region. He has reported from Asia for much of the past decade, previously serving as China correspondent in Beijing.
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