Based on the country's experience after World War II, popular opinion in Japan holds that the United States is the preferred superpower. Of course, Japan has agreed to many demands that it might have found to have been unpalatable over the past 70 years, but, even so, when the security guarantees are included, the general consensus has been that the U.S. is the preferred superpower. Now, though, with the emergence of the Trump administration, that consensus is being shaken.
The Japanese economy developed in tandem with the start of the Cold War and with the support of the U.S., but several industries became major exporters to the U.S., producing repeated bouts of trade friction. Typically, trade negotiations boiled down to voluntary restrictions on exports as a face-saving measure for the U.S. — the free market superpower — as it sought to protect its domestic industries.
However, negotiations between Japan and the U.S. gradually came to include matters that went beyond specific industries. Emphasizing the distinctiveness of the Japanese economy, the so-called revisionists advocated reforms to the Japanese model and changes in the U.S. trade policy approach to Japan.
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