Japan scraps US meeting after Washington demands more defence spending

WASHINGTON – Japan has cancelled an annual high-level meeting with key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defence, the Financial Times (FT) reported on June 20.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defence Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for annual “2+2” security talks.

But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the US side asked Japan to boost defence spending to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), higher than an earlier request of 3 per cent, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on June 21 that US President Donald Trump’s government was demanding that its Asian allies, including Japan, spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence.

A Japanese Foreign Ministry official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters on June 21 that Japan and the US have never discussed 3.5 per cent or 5 per cent targets for defence spending. The official also said he had no information about the FT report.

It is generally difficult to coordinate such four-way meetings, especially as Mr Hegseth is busy with the crisis in the Middle East, he said.

A US official who did not want to be identified confirmed that Japan had “postponed” the talks but said the decision was made several weeks ago. The official did not cite a reason. A non-government source familiar with the issue said he had also heard that Japan had pulled out of the meeting, but not the reason for it doing so.

US State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said she had no comment on the FT report when asked about it at a regular briefing, and the Pentagon also had no immediate comment.

Japan’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The nation’s foreign and defence ministries and the Prime Minister’s Office did not answer phone calls seeking comment outside business hours on June 21.

The FT said the new higher-spending demand was made in recent weeks by Mr Elbridge Colby, the third-most senior Pentagon official, who also recently upset another key US ally in the Indo-Pacific by launching a review of a project to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.

In March, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said that other nations do not decide Japan’s defence budget, after Mr Colby called for Tokyo to spend more to counter China in his nomination hearing to be the undersecretary of defence for policy.

Japan and other US allies have been engaged in difficult trade talks with the United States over Mr Trump’s worldwide tariff offensive.

The FT said the decision to cancel the July 1 meeting was also related to Japan’s July 20 Upper House election, which is expected to be a major test for Mr Ishiba’s minority coalition government.

Japan’s move on the 2+2 comes ahead of a meeting of the US-led Nato alliance in Europe next week, at which Mr Trump is expected to press his demand that European allies boost their defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. REUTERS