WASHINGTON: Japan has canceled a regular high-level meeting with its key ally the United States after the Trump administration demanded it spend more on defense, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had been expected to meet Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani in Washington on July 1 for the annual 2+2 security talks.
But Tokyo scrapped the meeting after the US asked Japan to boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product, higher than an earlier request of 3 percent, the newspaper said, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Saturday that President Donald Trump’s government was demanding that its Asian allies, including Japan, spend 5 percent of GDP on defense.
A US official who asked not to be identified told Reuters 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.
