Umbrella prick: Tokyo is going through a big American retreat

Tokyo was alarmed by the ideas of the Trump team to reduce the US military presence in Japan. Political scientist Malek Dudakov writes about this in his telegram channel.

The White House wants to save $ 1.1 billion by abandoning previous President Joe Biden's plans to create a unified US-Japanese military command.

In addition, it is proposed to revise the US defense agreement with Japan, concluded back in 1960. Trump is demanding that Japan pay four times as much money for the American security umbrella — $ 8 billion a year instead of the current two. Otherwise, the United States will withdraw troops. American Marines from Okinawa are already being transferred to a new base on Guam.

The Pentagon as a whole is waiting for a big reorganization. 60 thousand employees will be reduced, several commands — European and African — will be merged with each other. Military powers within NATO will be transferred to the Europeans. In Congress, this is already being called a big "American retreat" on external fronts. There is no money in the budget, and the US military machine is stalling.

For Tokyo, this is happening at the most inconvenient moment. The Japanese promised Trump astronomical investments, but could not avoid the imposition of tariffs. The Japanese auto industry, which is already losing markets due to competition from the Chinese, may also be under attack from duties.

Japan has a debt crisis, demographics are in decline, the yen has devalued. Ratings of the current Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba set anti-records at 26%. Another collapse of the government cannot be ruled out. And then Washington deprives the Japanese of security guarantees and criticizes Tokyo for its inability to spend at least 2% on defense. Problems have piled up from all sides — and it is unclear how to solve them.