Trump on ‘Unfair’ U.S.-Japan Security Treaty

President Donald Trump described a security treaty with Japan as an “unfair agreement” negotiated by “stupid” American officials in which “Japan doesn’t have to help us at all” if the U.S. is attacked. But that ignores the benefits in the treaty for the U.S.

The Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, which dates to 1951, gives the U.S. a strategic military presence in Japan to protect a “range of U.S. security interests in East Asia,” as explained by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service in a July 2009 report.

“Those concerns include the development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, the presence of militant Islamic groups based in Southeast Asia, the possibility of conflict with China over Taiwan, and the overall ascendance of China as a potential challenger to U.S. influence in the region,” the CRS report