Japan cancels US defence meeting after demand for more spending

Japan has cancelled an annual high-level meeting with key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defence.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defence Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for the yearly security talks.

But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the US asked Japan to boost defence spending to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product, higher than an earlier request of 3 per cent, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump’s administration was demanding that its Asian allies, including Japan, spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence.

A Japanese foreign ministry official, who asked not to be named, told reporters on Saturday that Japan and the US have never discussed 3.5 or 5 per cent targets for defence spending. The official also said he had no information about a Financial Times report about the matter.

It is generally difficult to coordinate such four-way meetings, especially as Hegseth is busy with the crisis in the Middle East, he said.

A US official who asked not to be identified said that Japan had “postponed” the talks in a decision made several weeks ago. The official did not cite a reason. A non-government source familiar with the issue said he had also heard Japan had pulled out of the meeting but not the reason for it doing so.