Why Japan is losing sleep over nightmare of a Trump re-election

Tokyo officialdom is having a low-grade panic over the spectre of another Donald Trump presidency, an event sure to make economic risk great again across the Asia-Pacific region if it comes to pass.

Japan would feel these shock waves early and often as its biggest trading partner confronts a new Trumpian onslaught. It hardly helps that Japan, Asia’s second-largest economy, approaches the US election cycle at a moment of domestic weakness.

02:42

Japanese monetary authorities mull intervention options after yen drops to 34-year low

This backdrop makes Trump’s possible return just about the last thing Tokyo needs. As Trump’s poll numbers suggest a tight race versus Biden, a new phrase has been added to Japan’s political lexicon: hobotora, which means “likely Trump”. That’s in addition to moshitora, or “if Trump”.

This smacks of desperation, partly because the political establishment here indulges in the myth that Abe was some highly attuned Trump whisperer. The reality is far more complicated.

William Pesek is a Tokyo-based journalist and author of “Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan’s Lost Decades”