A recent public opinion poll taken by Japan’s left-leaning Asahi Shimbun newspaper indicates that US President Donald Trump’s excessive tariffs, disruptive foreign policy and insulting inaccuracies are alienating the Japanese people. An earlier poll in Taiwan showed similar damage to trust.

Conducted from late February to early April and published in Japanese on April 27, the Asahi poll yielded the following results:

In negotiations with the US, is it better to comply or take an independent stance?

In an emergency, would the US really protect Japan?

48% of respondents said the international community “cannot rely much on the United States” to keep the peace, while 6% said it “cannot rely at all on the United States.”

54% of respondents said that American democracy is not setting a good example for other countries, while only 43% said it is.

Nevertheless, although a majority of respondents said that Japan should be more independent, nearly two-thirds did not want the Japanese government to shift its “diplomatic priority” from the US to Asia, including China. Only 16% thought that would be a good idea.  

The Asahi notes that “in past surveys, skeptics about Japan’s defense policy were at most just under 60%, so this time the figure stands out.”

Trump’s policies are having a similar impact in Taiwan, where a recent poll taken by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, released on April 15, found that 81.9% of respondents thought that his 32% “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from Taiwan were unreasonable, while 86.4% expected them to have a significant impact on the Taiwanese economy.

According to the Foundation, “This means Trump’s tariffs have caused a deep and widespread sense of crisis among the Taiwanese public.”

Furthermore, when asked if Taiwan could still depend on the US, 57.2% of Taiwanese respondents said they felt that the US was no longer dependable under Trump, while only 31.4% felt that it was dependable.

Foundation chairman Michael You Ying-lung, quoted by the South China Morning Post, said, “Because of Trump’s actions, particularly the shock of the new tariffs, the majority of Taiwanese have lost confidence in the US…. when 57% say the US is no longer reliable, that’s not just a statistical shift – it could mark a turning point in public opinion.”

“Of course,” he added, “it could also be a temporary emotional reaction. It depends on how Trump’s Taiwan policy evolves from here.”

But Max Lo, executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, said, “There’s a growing fear Trump might treat Taiwan the same way [as he treats Ukraine] – demanding more, offering less, and blaming the victim when things go wrong.”

At a parliamentary hearing held the week before last, Japanese opposition politician Shinji Oguma compared President Trump to “a delinquent kid extorting someone.” Oguma said that if Japan bends to his “impossible demands of bargaining and deals, it will set a bad example… If you get mugged and put money in their hands, they will come back to mug us” [again].

Oguma said he fears that Japanese government officials are not emotionally prepared to deal with Trump. Speaking only two days after Minister of Economic Revitalization Ryosei Akazawa had flown to Washington, DC, to discuss tariffs and trade, Oguma said:

“Minister Akazawa is a serious and capable person, but is it safe for a serious person to go there? He [Trump] is not a straight person, so he won’t listen to our straight talk… you should never make concessions to someone who is not straight up anyway… You know, if you approach people like that in a serious manner, you’ll definitely get beaten.”

“Anyway, I hope that you will never give in to the American extortionists.”

This story was picked up by The Times of India, the Jakarta Globe and Japan’s right-wing Sankei Shimbun. The YouTube video shows 1.5 million views and lists nearly 7,000 comments.

Oguma, a member of Japan’s main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party representing Fukushima in the House of Representatives, can say what Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and his ministers cannot or would prefer not to say.

On Monday, April 28, Oguma visited the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan to expand on his remarks and present his views on the state of US-Japan relations.

Pointing out that Trump’s tariff and currency policies don’t make sense, he emphasized that multilateralism, not bilateralism, is the approach that Japan should take in order to counter their negative impacts on the world economy.

Oguma is not anti-American. In fact, he is pro-American, with a particular fondness for American cinema. He recommended that the committee members watch The Apprentice, the 2024 movie about Trump’s early career, to understand what kind of person he is and what he learned from his mentor, Roy Cohn.

Cohn served as chief counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy during America’s anti-communist Red Scare in the early 1950s. In the movie, Trump presents the dying Cohn with fake diamond cuff links inscribed with the name “Trump.”

Asked if US-Japan relations can return to where they were pre-Trump, Oguma said that the alliance has resilience, that the Japanese people do not equate Trump with America and that what is needed is a return to decency. He does not feel that Japan has lost trust in America.

Polls taken by the Pew Research Center indicate that this might well be the case. They show the percentage of Japanese respondents with a favorable view of the US falling from 72% under President Obama in 2016 to 41% under President Trump in 2020 and rebounding to 70% under President Biden in 2024. Presumably, Trump has now taken the figure to another new low, but it could conceivably quickly rebound under his successor, as seen with the Biden jump.

In addition, contrary to the artificial dichotomy posed by Asahi’s public opinion poll, Japan is not choosing between the US and Asia but rather is paying close attention to both.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Ishiba flew to Hanoi to begin a visit to Vietnam and the Philippines to discuss trade and security. It was Ishiba’s third trip to Southeast Asia since becoming prime minister last October.

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