In early September the US secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, appeared on television to trumpet the conclusion of months of trade negotiations with America’s closest ally in Asia and the formal signing of a tariff deal he described as “tremendously beneficial to Japan”.
Japan, then under the administration of prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, had little choice but to accept that form of wording, even as the nation wondered what exactly was so tremendous about the deal and whether it was even true that Tokyo and Washington were still bonded by a “special relationship”.
After all, when Donald Trump had signed a trade deal in 2019 with the then prime minister Shinzo Abe, the US president described that too as “tremendous”.
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