When U.S. President Donald Trump met Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York on Sept. 26, he was jubilant. Abe, he told reporters, had agreed to open trade negotiations with the United States. "This was something," he said, "that, for various reasons over the years, Japan was unwilling to do, and now they are willing to do so." For Abe, it appeared to be a significant defeat. Despite repeatedly insisting that he would not enter bilateral free trade agreement talks with the Trump administration, it appeared that — faced with the threat of 25 percent tariffs on Japanese automobiles — Abe caved to U.S. pressure.
Opposition lawmakers were quick to hammer this point home. "It is a massive failure of economic and trade policy to be drawn into a bilateral framework," said Yukio Edano, president of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the largest opposition party. "Shameful, submissive diplomacy," added Kazuo Shii, chairman of the Japanese Communist Party.
However, the outcome was not nearly as dire for Abe as Trump's jubilation or the lamentations of Japan's opposition lawmakers would suggest. The reality is that not for the first time Abe escaped an encounter with the U.S. president with his country's trading relationship secure and his much-vaunted personal relationship with Trump intact.