U.S. President Donald Trump caused a stir in Tokyo last week with comments criticizing the unequal nature of his country’s security treaty with Japan.
"The U.S. is obligated to defend Japan, while Japan provides bases to the U.S. The time has come to change this asymmetrical bilateral treaty.”
Hang on — those remarks actually come from his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who himself has long questioned the nature of the alliance. What the president said was that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty is "an interesting deal with Japan that we have to protect them, but they don’t have to protect us,” adding, "who makes these deals?”
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