Media, Falco Colby makes Japan irritate meeting meeting
The US administration asked Japan to increase defense expenditure of up to 3.5% of the gross domestic product, an application that made Tokyo angry, leading it to postpone a expected meeting with the counterpart to Washington.
According to what reported by the Financial Times, which cites three people aware of the dossier, including two officials in Tokyo, the request was made by Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary for the defense of the United States, who had already put pressure on Japan to increase military expenses to 3% of GDP. In this context, the Japanese executive decided to erase a summit between the foreign leaders and the defense of the two countries, which according to the newspaper should have been held in Washington on July 1st. Citing one of the officials, the economic newspaper said that the cancellation of the interviews was also influenced by the timing of the elections of the Japanese high chamber, set for July 20. In 2022, after Trump’s first term, Japan decided to double the annual budget for the defense, bringing it to 2% of GDP by 2027, a choice that raises questions about the legitimacy based on the pacifist constitution of the country. Like what happens in Europe, the president Trump claims that the security treaty between the United States and Japan is unbalanced, and the Washington administration intends to ask Tokyo to pay more for the maintenance of the over 52 thousand American soldiers stationed in the Japanese archipelago, a claim that has already occurred during the current bilateral negotiations, following the imposition of the US bodies on trade. As part of the current defense strategy, to counter Beijing’s expansionism – that the White House sees as a threat to its hegemony – Tokyo aims to spend about 10,000 billion yen (61.6 billion euros) per year, thus becoming the third country in the world for military spending after the United States and China.
