Pacific drift: Why Europe needs a Japan strategy for the Takaichi-Trump era

In October 2025, Sanae Takaichi became Japan’s first female prime minister. Journalists and Japan-watchers in Tokyo and overseas wondered what her conservative approach would mean for the country’s increasingly assertive and strategic foreign policy. Within days, Takaichi’s meeting with US president Donald Trump provided the answer.

His visit to Tokyo was celebrated by both governments as demonstrating the “golden age” of the US-Japan alliance. It also confirmed that Takaichi’s foreign and domestic economic policy is characterised by acceleration. She will intensify the country’s defence spending, economic security and ideological alignment with Washington; at home, Japan will rely on the familiar combination of fiscal stimulus and ultra-loose monetary conditions.

For Europe, this means that the window for deeper bilateral cooperation created at the EU-Japan summit in July 2025 will not remain open indefinitely. For Brussels to retain its relevance to Tokyo, it must move from declarations—on security, economic resilience and technological standards—to delivery on tangible co-development projects and joint-procurement initiatives. Otherwise Tokyo’s bandwidth might be entirely absorbed by Washington’s gravitational pull.

Trump, trade and tariffs

Domestically, Takaichi’s fiscal policy aims to support households and stimulate demand. It is a continuation of Shinzo Abe’s “strong Japan”, a doctrine blending security hawkishness with nationalism and economic self-reliance. On foreign policy, Takaichi intends to bring forward Japan’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defence to 2027, two years earlier than planned. Her government’s first supplementary budget included allocations for hypersonic missile defence, cyber capabilities, and defence-industrial partnerships. This builds on Fumio Kishida’s defence-forward approach—developed by the former prime minister following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Crucially, Trump’s visit also allowed Takaichi to immediately secure US-Japan economic relations. The two leaders signed a document committing to the steady implementation of trade agreements; it is a substantial expansion from trade deal made earlier in 2025. This agreement had established a baseline 15% tariff on most Japanese imports to the US, while Japan pledged approximately $550bn of investment in American sectors including semiconductors, energy infrastructure and manufacturing. Takaichi has also expanded preferential market access for Japanese automakers and semiconductor firms. She opened Japanese public procurement to select US defence and digital infrastructure companies under new regulatory oversight structures.

Concurrently, Tokyo and Washington announced a bilateral agreement on critical minerals to secure joint stockpiles of rare earths, lithium and cobalt. Trump hailed this agreement, which emphasises US-Japan joint ventures for processing facilities in countries such as Australia and Indonesia, as proof that “our allies are our supply chains”. For Japan, the deal secures access to critical inputs for its burgeoning battery and defence industries. It also reassures Washington that Tokyo is a reliable partner in its mission to de-risk from China.

However, the new framework risks overshadowing the 2023 EU-Japan critical raw materials partnership—developed to diversify both sides away from Chinese dependencies—by tying Tokyo’s supply-chain commitments directly to American industrial policy. And the same is true for the EU and Japan’s progress towards mutual economic security. The July 2025 EU-Japan summit was envisioned as a “competitiveness alliance” to coordinate industrial policy and expand research cooperation. It also initiated negotiations on an information-security agreement for defence technology and cyber projects.

Takaichi is focused on integrating Japan’s technological base with the free world’s security architecture. This rhetoric resonates more with US Indo-Pacific discourse than with Brussels’s cautious, regulatory tone

But now Takaichi is focused on integrating Japan’s technological base with the free world’s security architecture. This rhetoric resonates more with US Indo-Pacific discourse than with Brussels’s cautious, regulatory tone.

Making Europe’s value known

On the other hand, Tokyo’s slide towards Washington does not void Europe’s agency: the EU and Japan are predisposed towards a strong economic partnership. Both are advanced industrial economies committed to democratic governance; both are seeking to navigate between the US and China without losing autonomy. Both face the challenge of securing access to critical technologies and materials while sustaining open trade and global standards. And both have invested politically in the 2019 Strategic Partnership and Economic Partnership Agreements, thus providing the institutional scaffolding for deeper cooperation.

Now the EU should remind Takaichi of the arguments for a solid EU-Japan relationship. Europe needs to treat Japan not only as a partner in multilateralism, but as a key pillar of its competitiveness and security agenda. With regard to critical raw materials, the EU needs to follow-up on joint investments, shared offtake agreements and clear environmental, social and governmental (ESG) standards—lest Japan relegate Brussels to the margins of its resource diplomacy.

Towards a critical minerals deal

Europe’s first step should be to operationalise the economic security commitments from the July summit. A joint EU-Japan critical minerals corridor—which links investment financing from the EU’s Global Gateway, and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC)—could pool risk capital for mining and processing projects in third countries such as Australia, Canada or Namibia.

The EU and Japan also need to coordinate their ESG and transparency standards to ensure that any joint projects reinforce each other’s liberal values, such as sustainability, human rights and anti-corruption. By harmonising ESG and transparency standards in joint projects, the EU can protect its interests in supply-chain security and sustainability, mitigate geopolitical risk, and create attractive frameworks for European companies. This should deepen trust and strategic alignment between the EU and Japan, and enable cooperation on rules-based, ethical resource development. Their aim should be to sustain economic security and counter non-market practices from rival powers.

Here, the Takaichi-Trump minerals deal provides a benchmark for the EU by setting standards for cooperative investment, supply-chain diversification, stockpiling, and regulatory streamlining for mining and processing in third countries. However, it also risks marginalising European firms. Brussels needs to move fast to establish complementary or alternative supply lines, and to carve out a role for the EU in financing, regulation and project selection.

A certain kind of collaboration

On defence, Takaichi’s accelerated rearmament will create an opening for European industry. Japan’s push to spend 2% of GDP on defence by 2027 will require new procurement channels and co-development partnerships: the EU and its member states should identify niches where cooperation is both politically feasible and commercially meaningful.

This could be, for example, in electronic warfare systems, satellite communications and maintenance for defence equipment already operated by Japan. This allows the EU to contribute meaningfully to Japan’s security architecture without encroaching on the latter’s defence priorities or any politically sensitive areas which involve US cooperation. The burgeoning EU-Japan information-security agreement could provide the legal basis for such exchanges.

At the regional level, Takaichi’s government inherits a cautiously improving relationship with South Korea and an expanding security dialogue with Britain and Australia. Europe should engage these networks through minilateral formats—for example, EU-Japan-South Korea on economic security, or EU-Japan-UK on maritime and cyber resilience—and avoid heavy military engagement or power projection. This would align with Tokyo’s preference for networked deterrence (meaning flexible, multilateral and technology-enabled defence coalitions that emphasise interoperability to respond to hybrid and asymmetric threats). But it would also showcase Europe’s value as a partner in capacity-building and governance—rather than for hard-power projection.

Tackling the Takaichi-Trump agenda

Under Takaichi, Japan’s political centre of gravity is shifting toward strengthening national security, enhancing resilience and deepening alliance integration. But the US-led Indo-Pacific framework is also allowing Trump to demonstrate his renewed transactionalism towards Japan: he is coupling praise for its defence spending with threatening tariffs if trade imbalances persist. Thus, while the new US-Japan trade agreement has brought temporary stability, it also binds Japan more tightly to US regulatory and investment frameworks. This is also reflected in Tokyo doubling down on securing Washington as its primary security partner: both as a pragmatic response to regional threats and as a calculated insurance policy.

Europe needs to be realistic about the risks. Trump could overshadow the EU’s Indo-Pacific agenda; the EU’s economic security agenda could remain declaratory rather than operational; without timely, decisive action, Europe’s Indo-Pacific strategy could become merely symbolic. Japan’s shift towards the US means that the EU’s own alignment will increasingly be filtered through the Washington prism.

Furthermore, if the EU’s economic-security agenda remains purely declaratory, Tokyo will simply default to the path of least resistance and pursue deeper integration with Washington. For Europeans, the urgent challenge is to safeguard the autonomy and influence of Europe’s own Indo-Pacific strategy and ensure the EU remains a relevant actor. Crucially, it needs to avoid being sidelined by deeper US-Japan alignment.

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Under Takaichi, Japan will be a good and indispensable partner for Europe. However, this will not be automatic. The EU should use the momentum created from the July 2025 summit to embed itself in Japan’s new policy architecture through specific, bankable projects that create interdependence. If Europe fails to act, it risks watching from the sidelines as Japan becomes enmeshed in a US-led economic and security bloc.

Brussels needs to seize the opportunity for closer cooperation with Tokyo by translating its critical-minerals partnership into joint ventures; by finalising the information-security accord; by reducing its supply-chain exposure in China; and by linking industrial policy instruments to Japan’s rearmament drive. This will allow the EU to shape, rather than merely react to, the Takaichi-Trump agenda.