The God-Emperor appears to have turned his sights upon the trade deficit with Japan and the massive expense of maintaining the US military there.
President Donald Trump said Japan is not required to protect the United States militarily and makes “a fortune” from it economically, as he fired off an impromptu broadside at a key ally.
It came as Japan’s trade minister is arranging a trip to Washington during which he will reportedly demand an exemption from imminent U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.
“We have a great relationship with Japan. But we have an interesting deal with Japan that we have to protect them, but they don’t have to protect us,” Trump said Thursday.
“And by the way, they make a fortune with us economically,” he said. “I actually ask, who makes these deals?”
In response, Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said Friday that Japan trusts Washington to keep its obligation to the two countries’ security treaty.
Around 54,000 U.S. military personnel are stationed in Japan, mostly in the Okinawa region east of Taiwan.
The key observation that President Trump appears to have made is that imperialism is not, in the long term, profitable to the imperialist nation. Over time, it increasingly benefits the foreigners who are attracted to the imperial center of power, to the exclusion of the nationals for whose benefit the empire ostensibly exists.