Japan cancels meeting with US after Trump calls for further military spending increases
Japan has canceled a high-level meeting planned with the United States in July after the Trump administration asked it to increase its military spending to 3.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP), the Financial Times reported.
Tokyo and Washington had planned to hold a meeting of their foreign and defense ministers, the so-called "2+2" format, in Washington on July 1. Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth, from the US side, and Takeshi Iwaya and Gen Nakatani, from Japan, were to participate, respectively.
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According to the aforementioned financial outlet, the request to increase Japanese defense spending was recently raised with the Japanese government by the Pentagon's chief policy advisor, Elbridge Colby.
The US had previously urged Japan to raise its defense spending to 3 percent of GDP, and the demand for a further increase angered the Japanese government and was instrumental in canceling the meeting, which had not yet been formally announced, according to the Financial Times.
Japan is on the verge of electionsAnother factor that led Tokyo to cancel the meeting in early July is the proximity of the elections for the Upper House of the Japanese Parliament, scheduled for July 20.
In 2022, following Trump's first term, Japan decided to double its annual defense budget to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, a drastic shift from its postwar security policy, framed by its pacifist Constitution, which equated it with the level of military spending of NATO member countries.
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The second Trump administration has criticized the US-Japan security treaty as unilateral and has suggested that Tokyo should pay more to host US troops stationed in the Japanese archipelago once bilateral tariff negotiations progress.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has sought to distance himself from Washington's demands by stating that decisions on defense spending are the responsibility of the national government, not the demands of other countries.
The disagreement between Japan and the United States comes to light ahead of next week's NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands. The United States hopes to approve an increase in member states' military spending to 5% of GDP, a measure opposed by Spain .
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