President Donald Trump joked about Pearl Harbor in a meeting Thursday with the Japanese prime minister, invoking the surprise attack on the U.S. on Dec. 7, 1941, to explain his decision not to notify American allies ahead of strikes on Iran.
“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said from the Oval Office. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, okay? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, okay?”
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a highly popular security hawk who became Japan’s first female prime minister in October, widened her eyes and leaned back in her chair, dropping the careful smile from her face.
Takaichi did not respond to Trump’s quip about the attack that killed more than 2,000 Americans. She remained measured toward Trump, whom she praised as the only person who “can achieve peace across the world.” She also occasionally looked at her watch as Trump continued to take questions from reporters.
The episode captured the latest example of the unpredictable and often uncomfortable reality of a White House meeting with Trump, who has a penchant for revisiting fraught moments in a country’s history in front of its current leader.
On Tuesday, Trump repeatedly lauded Winston Churchill to the prime minister of Ireland, a country that fought hard to end British rule. Last summer, he told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that D-Day — when U.S. and Allied forces invaded Nazi-occupied France — was “not a great day” for Germans.
“That was not a pleasant day for you,” Trump told Merz, in front of cameras that captured the exchange. “This was not a great day.”
“Well in the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship,” Merz replied.
Past U.S. presidents have gone out of their way to pay respects to the victims of World War II. Then-President Barack Obama visitedHiroshima nearly 71 years after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city. He joined then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a somber trip to the USS Arizona Memorial that commemorates the U.S. sailors and Marines killed in the Pearl Harbor attack.
Confrontations with heads of state have become a fixtureof Trump’s second presidency. He uses his flair for showmanship to turn televised meetings into opportunities to assert leverage over U.S. allies. Heads of state, in turn, have to weigh the risks of a live-streamed clash with the possibility of improving relations with the U.S. president.
The frequency of Oval Office meetings has slowed this year after a steady run during the first 11 months of Trump’s term. Aides have pushed the president to focus publicly on policies aimed at his central campaign promise to lower costs. The stakes of bilateral meetings have increased since Trump directed the military to strike Iran, drawing the nation into a war that Trump hopes will attract support from allies, including Japan.
“We’re doing this excursion, and when it’s completed, we are going to have a much safer world,” Trump said Thursday of Iran. “And the prime minister agrees with me.”
Trump has urged Japan to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil chokepoint threatened by the conflict with Iran. Japan historically has maintained friendly relations with Israel and Arab countries. Japan’s pacifist constitution, adopted after World War II, restricts military operations overseas, and the country has sought to play the role of neutral mediator.
The war is highly unpopular among the Japanese, polls show, and most voters disapprove of Takaichi’s reluctance to take a stance on it. As she arrived in Washington, Takaichi had not publicly announced any decisions on sending ships to help secure the strait.
David Nakamura contributed to this report.
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