U.S. demanded Japan pay $8 bil annually for troops: Bolton

GuyEvansToday  07:04 am JST

Who do you believe?

Bolton (who was fired and now like everybody else tries to capitalize off Trump)

Or

Yoshihide [Suga]

Tough choice, although if Suga or anyone else in the Abe regime said it was 2020 this year I'd double check the calendar.

In reality even if Trump wants more. Is it better to let the military walk and build your own army?

But us simpletons will just use this to bash Trump. I guess negotiations are bad? 

Why should Japan negotiate anything or pay more when US troops are primarily deployed here to serve the US government's interests?

they should be out of japan . Anyways they are a nuisance . Not needed

When America forces article 9 on your country then uses the military leverage to extract more money or to make Japan sign the Plaza Accord 1985 sending Japan's economy in the lost decades.

If pressure from China, North Korea, Russia, South Korea is not enough to change your defense policy... Then wait until Trump extracts money out of you like a school bully.

Does buying billions in American bonds don't count?

Employing millions of Americans in that country, good paying jobs. That doesn't count anymore?

Japan already pays more for American bases then any other country in the world. Fact

Yooki ImadaToday  07:14 am JST

It is Abe and/or his staff involved in these negotiations should know the real score. Anything they say must be the truth.........

Because they always tell the truth, right? Just like they told the truth about Moritomo Gakuen, Kake Gakuen, and Anri and Katsuyuki Kawai?

We're demanding that a country under military occupation pay through the nose for and to their occupiers. Sounds like us...

Japan and the UK both function as unsinkable aircraft carriers, permanently off the coasts of Asia and Europe respectively. Would not expect any change to that status.

Note how neither side 'lies' in this.

Bolton states, flat out, that Trump wanted $8 Billion from Japan.

Bolton conveys it not through formal negotiations, but in a one on one with Yachi that wasn't, ostensibly, negotiations.

Therefore, Suga has the ability to state that, technically without lying, that since the issue wasn't raised in formal bilateral negotiations 'at present,' the demand wasn't made.

Both did their jobs. Bolton conveyed Trump's wishes, and Suga is able to deflect and deny that Abe was given the message.

Both sides lie, and neither side is lying.

Par for the course.

Japan is a client-state of the U.S. What Trump 'thinks' is unknown to any posting on this thread. As for John Bolton, he is selling books and constructing a false image of himself. He is a sociopathic liar and madman. Instead the corporate media have made John Bolton a “man of principle,” according to the Washington Post, and a fearless infighter for the “sovereignty of the United States.” Writing in the Post, Kathleen Parker notes that Bolton isn’t motivated by the money he will earn from his book (in the neighborhood of $2 million), but that he is far more interested in “saving his legacy". Examine that legacy:

Bolton, used student deferments and service in the Maryland National Guard to avoid serving in Vietnam and is a classic Chicken Hawk. He supported the Vietnam War and continues to support the war in Iraq. Bolton endorsed preemptive military strikes in North Korea and Iran in recent years, and lobbied for regime change in Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen. When George W. Bush declared an “axis of evil” in 2002 consisting of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, Bolton added an equally bizarre axis of Cuba, Libya, and Syria.

When Bolton occupied official positions at the Department of State and the United Nations, he regularly ignored assessments of the intelligence community in order to make false arguments regarding weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Cuba and Syria in order to promote the use of force. When serving as President Bush’s Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and Disarmament, Bolton ran his own intelligence program, issuing white papers on WMD that lacked support within the intelligence community. He used his own reports to testify to congressional committees in 2002 in effort to justify the use of military force against Iraq.

Bolton presented misinformation to the Congress on a Cuban biological weapons program. When the Central Intelligence Agency challenged the accuracy of Bolton’s information in 2003, he was forced to cancel a similar briefing on Syria. In a briefing to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2005, the former chief of intelligence at the Department of State, Carl Ford, referred to Bolton as a “serial abuser” in his efforts to pressure intelligence analysts. Ford testified that he had “never seen anybody quite like Secretary Bolton…in terms of the way he abuses his power and authority with little people.”

The hearings in 2005 included a statement from a whistleblower, a former contractor at the Agency for International Development, who accused Bolton of using inflammatory language and even throwing objects at her. The whistleblower told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff that Bolton made derogatory remarks about her sexual orientation and weight among other improprieties. The critical testimony against Bolton meant that the Republican-led Foreign Relations Committee couldn’t confirm his appointment as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. President Bush made Bolton a recess appointment, which he later regretted.

The United Nations, after all, was an ironic assignment for Bolton, who has been a strong critic of the UN and most international organizations throughout his career because they infringed on the “sovereignty of the United States.” In 1994, he stated there was no such thing as the United Nations, but there is an international community that “can be led by the only real power left in the world,” the United States. Bolton stated that the “Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories,” and that if it “lost ten stories, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

Bolton said the “happiest moment” in his political career was when the United States pulled out of the International Criminal Court. Years later, he told the Federalist Society that Bush’s withdrawal from the UN’s Rome Statute, which created the ICC, was “one of my proudest achievements.”

Bolton targeted every arms control and disarmament agreement over the past several decades, and played a major role in abrogating two of the most significant ones. As an arms control official in the Bush administration, he lobbied successfully for the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. As soon as he joined the Trump administration, he went after the Intermediate-Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was abrogated in 2018. He criticized the Nunn-Lugar agreement in the 1990s, which played a key role in the denuclearization of former Soviet republics, and maligned the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as well as the Iran nuclear accord. He helped to derail the Biological Weapons Conference in Geneva in 2001.

U.S. efforts at diplomatic reconciliation have drawn Bolton’s ire. The two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian situation as well as Richard Nixon’s one-China policy have been particular targets. He is also a frequent critic of the European Union, and a passionate supporter of Brexit. From 2013 to 2018, he was the chairman of the Gatestone Institute, a well-known anti-Muslim organization. He was the director of the Project for the New American Century, which led the campaign for the use of force against Iraq. The fact that he was a protege of former senator Jesse Helms should come as no surprise.

Bolton’s testimony is one of deceit and disinformation over his thirty year career of opposition to U.S. international diplomacy. As an assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, he fought against reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been held in internment camps during World War II. 

Two secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condi Rice, have accused Bolton with holding back key information on important international issues, and Bolton did his best to sabotage Powell’s efforts to pursue negotiations with North Korea. Bolton had a hand in the disinformation campaign against Iraq in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of 2003.

The legacy of John Bolton is well established; his manuscript will not alter this legacy. Bolton, a member of the Bush administration was one of the promoters of the fraudulent invasion and catastrophic occupation of Iraq, a disaster that eventually spilled over into Syria, and now has people literally fleeing into the ocean. Unlike some architects of the Iraq war, who had the decency to disappear from public life, Bolton continued to unapologetically defend the con job he did as George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, even as he tirelessly agitated for war with Iran and North Korea and Venezuela as Trump’s national security advisor. This is a guy who spent the entirety of his boot-licking career constantly working the levers of the national security apparatus towards waging war — any war, with whatever country was at hand to target, be it Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or Venezuela, whose government he tried to have overthrown.  

Trump, for all his madness, has been a counterweight to the bipartisan war machine. Maybe it’s only because he’s dumb and lazy and senile, but Trump is a president whose body count approaching the four-year mark is almost certainly lower than Obama’s or Clinton’s, and orders of magnitude lower than either Bushes’ or Reagan’s. That means little to an establishment that sees foreign wars as the natural order of things. If another country had a guy like Bolton, whose whole schtick was going around the world threatening heads of state with ouster or death. The press would call him a madman and an international criminal. It may be too much to ask White House correspondents and national security reporters to bring that kind of vocabulary to bear on high American officials.

Bolton has no particular expertise in anything at all, he is just an angry shyster lawyer picked up by the more insane elements of the Republican Party as their pit bull. Bolton has been vocal about his disdain for the U.N. and international law in general. In a 2018 speech at the Federalist Society, Bolton told the audience that “the largely unspoken, but always central, aim” of the International Criminal Court was “to constrain the United States,” and promised to let it “die on its own.” During his time with the Trump administration, the U.S. took the extraordinary step of denying visas to ICC investigators and announced that it was withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council. In an sane society, people like Bolton wouldn’t be allowed on television to promote his self-serving book, much less put in charge of American security. Instead he would be tried by the very court he worked to destroy as a war criminal and sentenced to hang.

Despite having built a rapport with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump has criticized bilateral obligations under the decades-old bilateral security alliance as one-sided and unfair.

I always wondered how Abe to stand after taking it in the proverbial butt from Trump time after time, and STILL claiming to be BFF!

Shinzo Abe will cough it out anyway. LDP cronies, under his administration, are the most Americanophile vassals ever in Japanese history. The US will never pull out of Japan even if Japanese government demanded so. The CIA and Pentagon would wipe out any Japanese opposition to the US' stay in Japan. It happened with the DPJ who seeked a closer tie with China, and the US secretly backed the LDP into power and sabotaged every effort of the DPJ administration. Wikileaks told us on how the US had an extensive shadow influence over both Japan and Europe.

SOFA really needs to be renegotiated. It is not 1945 any more. Okinawa is losing billions because of the space taken up by the US bases. The space used for Kadena air base alone would create a new major city. If the US insists on staying here, they should be paying Okinawa the same rent as we would have to pay if we rented this land.

Invalid CSRF

Trump asked Abe to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2018.

That should be worth at least ¥2 billion reduction of this.

What Bolton revealed is scandalous! How dare the U.S. demand such an increase? It's outrageous! We should be paying Japan! After all, the U.S. is using Japan as its fist line of defense in the Far East.

Bolton deserves a medal for revealing this secret. He is a hero.

If you believe the above, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

Don't take the US-Japan security treaty for granted as any realignment is possible. Japan is not a cash machine.

Trump doesn't know much, doesn't care about foreign affairs. He would be happy to sell America's allies to China so long as any "good deal" is made. He hastens the decline of American hegemony. "Making America Great Again" unfortunately ends up benefiting Beijing.

I think the U.S. should pull it's troops from around the world. theses days it does't take long to re deploy if needed. Iraq war is a good example of how quick this could be done.

But these troops are NOT only deployed as a deterrent force. Several tasks are involved among them is to keep the host nation in check.

Japan, South Korea, Germany, Iraq, and other nations are basically being monitored for any violations of a peace agreement.

Does Trump know the so-called "host nation support" originated from a "sympathy budget" which Washington asked Tokyo to pay to Japanese base workers as salaries in 1978? At the time, it was questioned on what legal (treaty) basis, Japan should shoulder such expenses. There's none, answered then Chief Cabinet Secretary Shin Kanemaru, except that Japan must help the budge-pinched U.S. government out of sympathy. Consequently what the U.S. side euphemistically calls the "host nation support" is called a "sympathy budget" in Japan even today.

Can Toyota USA ask the U.S. government to pay salaries for its U.S. employees? But Tokyo has followed U.S. demands submissively, and this sympathy budged has now skyrocketed to an enormous 185 billion yen annually, for it includes not only personnel costs but also all base maintenance costs such as water, utility and repairs.

Besides this sympathy budget, Japanese taxpayers are obliged to pay for measures against base-derived problems such as crimes, accidents, and noise pollutions (180.8 billion yen); SACO-related expenses (120 billion yen); USFJ reallignment-related expenses (890 billion yen); land rents (166 billion yen); subsidies to U.S. base-hosting municipalities (34 billion yen) ; etc.

Trump thinks this is not enough and demands Japan pay 5 times more. LOL.

As Richard posted, Japan is a client state of the US. If the descendants of war criminals could of shook the leash, it would of been done a long time ago. I have had the unfortunate experience of working with some nutters who want nothing to do with the post war constitution, are on some neo fascist crap and would love to go back to the days when kamikazes were glorious beings. Ossan kun knows nothing of what he posted. Its a victor loser dynamic, and the losers have to keep dignity through creative narratives and alternative versions of history; Ive heard them all, with visual props to reinforce their stories during yusukan visits.

The unaltered version of history is a conditional surrender was asked for, an event happened to hasten a more favorable decision, then an unconditional surrender was "negotiated" and signed on the USS Missouri, Douglas McAuthur was the defactor emperor for several years, then the Korea war started, Japan was used for that and her economy rebounded, then the relationship became "friendly" No need to add this or that, it is what it is.

How embarrassing for Abe to have this news on the heels of his Aegis ashore debacle, it just shows you it doesn't pay to brown-nose trump.

KennyToday  07:18 am JST

they should be out of japan . Anyways they are a nuisance . Not needed

True, they're not. The SDF are perfectly adequate for the job of protecting Japan, unfortunately they answer to Shinzo Abe and his clique of clueless LDP ojisans.

The trick to negotiation is being willing to walk away with nothing. Japan knows they need to wait just a few months and this will mostly go away. Delay. Trump is willing to take all his toys and leave - and make no mistake - he thinks of the US Military as his toys.

Can't wait for anyone else to be in charge. Someone who floats diplomatic ideas quietly, not on tweeter. Someone who understands that people stationed in those places have extended family and lives tied to the locations.

Never Never Land

That's a different US Military location, not in Asia.

The US military overseas operations in 2020 are estimated to be US$24.4 billion. That's for 140 locations and about 174K active military, but doesn't include "wars." Korea has about 26K US Military and Japan as about 55K.

the Department of Defense currently estimates the total cost of maintaining the U.S. presence in South Korea and Japan at $4.5 billion and $5.7 billion, respectively.

Trump wanted a profit?

This is why they scrapped the US missiles, the US demanded more money. The thing is Trump is bluffing, if the US pull out China take over.

If the US let Japan SDF have more roles of US military over Okinawa and mainland of Japan for years, the US would have not needed to put more military bases in Okinawa and others. Japan would have not needed to pay more money to the US and the US could have saved more money of its own taxpayers. Japan is still not at war for 7 decades. It seems to me Japan is mostly capable to defend/protect its own country with MINIMUM forces of US military in Okinawa. It really seems Okinawa have too many US bases and soldiers.

Trump thought he could "learn" the Japanese his "art of the shakedown", but they only have to gaman a little longer and the barking blowhard will go away "like a miracle". The Japanese are now ready to turn the page on the orange "man who would be king".

What exactly is the news here, though? We knew at the time what Trump was asking, with these exact figures, and we knew that Japan already shoulders much of the burden for hosting US troops. We discussed it endlessly here on JT. :sigh:

And Bolton was seen as a hawk. Is he now some kind of angel?

But these troops are NOT only deployed as a deterrent force. Several tasks are involved among them is to keep the host nation in check.

Japan, South Korea, Germany, Iraq, and other nations are basically being monitored for any violations of a peace agreement.

How long does the US need to occupy Germany, SK, and Japan for? A hundred years? 150 years? Soon there won't be anyone alive who even fought in those wars and the US is still occupying. Image if a country was still occupying because of WWI? Sure, China is a threat and so is NK, but maybe its because the US refuses to leave. Perhaps a "Grand Bargain" needs to be signed among all these countries. Maybe Russia should join NATO. Of course, having all this tension around means more military spending and more money for the war machines and the MIC.

Call their bluff to remove troops!

They would never do it, they have their bases in these strategic locations!

It's complete BS. Japan INC. wants the U.S. military in Japan. Why all the huffing and puffing to get the U.S. out. Huff and Puff to the Japanese Government if you're so concerned about your country. They set the foreign policies, not the U.S.

Japan already pays more for American bases then any other country in the world. Fact

This reminds me of something called "Faustian Curse". Japan took the economic, political, scientific aids from the US for granted. The Japanese politicians never thought about the post-war economic miracle as a special event subsidized by American taxpayers. The US built a strong economy in every capitalist, democratic country to fortify a global presence against the USSR. When the USSR was near death, the US forced Plaza Accord on Germany and Japan, and undid all supports for all its capitalist allies. Germany and the rest of Europe realized the true face of the US long ago. They reluctantly accepted the Marshall Plan, but they all secretly developed an independent system of power from the US that we all know today as the European Union. Germany avoided the catastrophic effects of the Plaza Accord through switching to the EURO and developing a value economy.

Japan failed to realize the true face of the US or the strings attached to the "Post-War economic miracle". What the US gave you can be taken back, and China is now learning the harsh lessons but they are more prepared than Japan ever did.

The U.S. has been under an undeclared state of emergency since November 8, 2016 and will continue to be until he leaves office. If he were an ethical and moral person, he would have resigned in 2017.

The US has been in an emergency since 9/11/2001.

Clearly the Japanese Govt doesn't consider the US as an occupying force. That's just rhetoric. Japan can formally request the US to leave at any point and within 5 yrs, they would be gone. But then who would Japan blame for failures?

The US is being a big bully as usual ! They should just leave!!

Trump will be gone soon, so how about everyone just ignore what he says and does?

Mr Bolton was and still is a WAR Monger, Mr Trump once said if it was up to Bolton we will be at war with every nation.

Glad to see him Dis-functional and out of the W.H.

Freedom isn't free.

They look like puppets.

What a con, America wants to be here in Japan, they should be paying the Japanese government for the privilege, it's all part of the US strategy. They keep telling Japan they are here for the defense of Japan, that's the laughable part.

I was never very trusting of United States after reading this article, Amerikas military needs to leave Japan and Germany.

It should say Trump demanded Japan pay $8 billion. The U.S. didn't demand any such amount.

The basis for this discussion is mired in the lack of proper analysis. The idea portrayed here by Bolton is that Trump stated some figures which may or may not have been a "demand" for payment. It could have been the estimated value or worth of the US forces for Japan which Trump may have estimated if Japan were to have a similar force for and by itself and could be a basis for negotiations. US too must realize that to maintain a similar force within the US or in places like Guam and Hawaii would have similar costs regardless of consideration of response times and efficacy as a deterant as well as for immediate intervention. Therefore any negotiation would start from some estimated figure.

Then again as in Trump's negotiation tactics, it (the dollar figure) could be used as a bargaining tool. However, it is most unlikely that Trump will remove US troops from Japan or any other Asian country just because they do not pay enough. He knows of many other ways he can get financial and other benefits and values from those countries.

The whole point being that there is monetary value or cost on both sides that must be considered.

Now I know why US-Japan alliance is that so glorious, that's really expensive! It's about money not democratic ideology!

Japan should not waste sooooo much money for keeping US troops in the country.

It seems US wants other countries to pay for protecting US interests! Japan should not rely on US for defence. US is not a country it once was! It's time for Japan to start defending itself, get some nukes, a rocket defence system like S400 which is better than US one( faster and no stupid booster which drops on to someones head)... And get some Migs which are far better than the F series. And most importantly stop kissing US arse all the time! Noting good will come from it, as US has a very long history of betraying their friends!!!

"This is a good time to be asking for the money," Trump was quoted as saying in reference to the base payments

With a President like this, you don't need an enemy! This is like Mafia blackmailing!

"We are not engaged in bilateral negotiations at present," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said..."Therefore, it's not true that the U.S. government has demanded an increase in payments for U.S. troops stationed in Japan."

Sneaky Suga, but you did engage in negotiations and the U.S. government did demand an increase in payments, did it not?

I bash Trump all the time but this is a part of negotiations. Move on.

@richard gallagher: re: Interesting response, but I'm interestingly curious "Two secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condi Rice, have accused Bolton with holding back key information on important international issues, and Bolton did his best to sabotage Powell’s efforts to pursue negotiations with North Korea. Bolton had a hand in the disinformation campaign against Iraq in the run-up to the U.S. invasion of 2003." what sources are you using for this information/disinformation?

I don't think they would be there if Japan actually had a choice.

Inauguration day, January 20, 2021, is less than seven months away. Hopefully we will see a return to sanity in American foreign policy at that point.

With Biden? Impossible.

Talks to determine the amount of the next 5-year sympathy budget for Tokyo to bear is said to start later this year. Let's wait and see how their talks will come down to. Will stupidity prevail as in the past?

@Xeno,

nice shiny object but seems counterfeit because you left out the part about tens of thousands of young men who died, on islands and other places. Without their sacrifice, many of those Isorokus Tojos or Yamashitas would of been pounding the table with demands, then more demands just like they did in Singapore or Hong Kong. what a scary world it would of been. If Japan would of won or negotiated a cease fire with conditions, they would of never been so kind.

It is Abe and/or his staff involved in these negotiations should know the real score. Anything they say must be the truth......... and not from this disgruntled deep state operative who is only looking out for the interest of un-elected... power-hungry Washington elites who wants to control domestic and foreign policy.

so... most Japanese don,t want them to be in Japan, and they ( would ) need to pay ( more ) for it ... ,... great. ...smh...

U.S forces need to go

this news will make the US government disadvantage more as well as the incident of recent protest against racism.

But for Japan this won’t affect any self-defense policy that must improve or strengthen the defense capacity by ourselves against neighbor countries

If Japan can not afford it, I hope Japan ask for allied countries to help with paying money more ....

So if the Japanese dont want the US forces here then they had better like either the Chinese, or Russian Forces here because without the US being here Japan is going to be over run by its neighbours who are a little more aggressive and a little less caring .

It seems Japan needs MINIMUM US forces there, not full. The US military have not fought to help Japan since the end of that war 2. Japan has never started new war for 7 decades and ........

Demands an trump syndrome aside what they are saying here is that there will be a need for collective defense in the future. A big one, depending on which way the the cards fall of course.

there will be a need for collective defense in the future. A big one, depending on which way the the cards fall of course.

Im not sold because the military is for US interest in the region. Even the JSDF was influenced by the U.S.; it was originally a police corps. There has been talk of this for years, even old Ishihara wanting 1/2 of Yokota returned for civilian use. Always articles about the dangers of Japan remilitarzing, but it never had merit. During every administration this issue comes up. Trump was just asking the world to pay up, Japan included. Japan has already been paying so I also did not connect to that logic, but on the trade side, Trump is spot on. Their constitution, written in part by the US, prohibits a military and the revision hasnt come yet. Lots of spending creep towards it, but I cant see the status quo changing anytime soon.

If the request is true, then the Japanese side would have refused.

Mogi, I think it was Mogi, said that when Trump said he would pull out if he didn't increase the amount, Abe said, Mr. President, that's not true, and if we do that, the U.S. will have to pay for the entire cost of the troops. When I advised him to do that, Trump said, "Shinzo is the Genius who convinced me to do it," and he retracted the story. And.

Just having a naval base in Japan in the first place is a cost savings for the US military.

If they had to move every single one of them from the US mainland, it would cost them a lot of money for fuel, and the ships would take a lot of time to move. That alone is a benefit.

come on guys.......

Do you know why this is not good and is a problem, asking more money to host the troops, Or having two conutries have discussion and negotiation! Because it is Trump....

If Obama ask 10 billion USD a year to host the troops in Japan,..... you know THERE WILL BE NO PROBLEM, NO fake media cry, NO online media comments and shouting .... It will be ratified as the best negotiation skill of Obama...

Again the guy who is fired and with a twisted nipple may have to write some thing to please his followers..

There are more to come... from the one who wrote the book for Bolton ...

wait and see...

Inauguration day, January 20, 2021, is less than seven months away. Hopefully we will see a return to sanity in American foreign policy at that point.

USA: We want $8 billion to station our troops here, if not were pulling our troops out,

Japan: Well its been nice knowing you, cheers!

USA: Oh ***t!

Japan: So we can take it that you would be all packed up and left by the end of March next year then?

IF the US troops were to pull out of Japan next year, I just wonder how much it will effect the economy? how much do the contribute to the local shops, economy and infer structure?

Despite having built a rapport with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

That's what Abe thinks!

Nobody cares what a traitor says.

@Mark,

I agree, good riddance to Bolton, but I dont know why he was ever hired to begin with, along with Mattis.

Trump seems to have good sense when it comes to people, maybe he just kept them on for sympathy. He also complained about Mattis, "is he a dem or repub" I could never tell either, Seems he read allot of books though.

Barr, sec treasury and the guy doing labor, make for a good Trump team.

0Currently, there are over 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan and Tokyo allocated 197.4 billion yen (about $1.8 billion) in fiscal 2019 that ended in March and 199.3 billion yen in fiscal 2020 for hosting them.

The hosting them is misleading as the article fails to mention that within this cost it provides a substantial labor force keeping local Japanese people employed in various forms i.e. private contract employees, local Japanese workers, ( about 90% of the base jobs are filled by Japanese employees whose limited English or have proper US base knowhow skills are lacking yet hired and thus takes more money to get them trained, only for them to revert back to the old ways and increases costs for outside support), local contract businesses as well as off base economic impact in various locations. The article also fails to mention the US taxpayer costs used to pay for projects awarded to local companies who employs local workforce.

The incompetent current occupant of the White House, who happens to be unfit to be President of the United States of America (POTUS), is clueless about U.S., as well as world affairs.

The threats he and his followers make to allies and friends shows how much of a danger he is to peace throughout the world.

The U.S. has been under an undeclared state of emergency since November 8, 2016 and will continue to be until he leaves office. If he were an ethical and moral person, he would have resigned in 2017.

In the U.S. there is saying: “Anybody can become president” ... well, this truly proves it. And “We’ll see what happens” as national policy has brought the USA down a number of notches. It will take decades to undo the damage done by the current U.S. administration.

MeiyouwentiToday  07:41 am JST

The US-Japan alliance is one-sided and unfair. To make it truly bilateral and fair, the US should allow Japan to have nuclear weapons and admit that the US made a mistake when it imposed the Constitution on Japan when the country was under US occupation.

Japan does not need anyone's permission to go nuclear. If the US wanted to prevent Japan from going nuclear the best it can do is to guarantee Japan coverage under the US nucldar umbrella. That's why South Korea and Australia are also under the US umbrella. The only reason that Japan has not gone nuclear is that there is absolutely no support from the people and the government does not want the responsibility of being a nuclear power.

The US defacto admitted it's mistake back in 1950 when it forced Japan to create the JSDF, in direct violation of the second paragraph of Article 9. But you are wrong to call it a U.S. mistake, because Article 9 was created by the US for the sole purpose of placating other allied WWII victors, notably te USSR and Australia who were demanding that Emperor Hirohito be tried as a war criminal. The US wanted to avoid this at any cost because it would likely lead to a breakdown in Japan's society and open up an opportunity for the USSR to enter and advance communism.

The present poor economic situation in United States makes Donald Trump

( TV Man) to seek financial supports from many countries.He has already started to reduce 25000 soldiers from Germany and he told German chancellor Angela Merkel to pay more for station of 50000 soldiers presently stationed in Germany.so there is nothing to be surprised if he is tapping everywhere for money.The US is capable to creat wars between Japan and China or North Korea or even with South Korea to force Japan an South Korea to accept US bases in exchange of money.He left Paris Climate agreement because of money.He left from Iran Nuclear Pact because of Money,He left from UNESCO because of money and he stopped paying contribution to World Helath Organisation because of money.He is a Money Monger and nothing else.

Had nothing to do with money and poor economic situation. The economic situation was the best its every been before the shut down. He was stopping the pattern of bowing to Japan China Korea and other countries and demanding they play fair

@Peter neil, trump will be gone soon, you wish! I bet you he will return like a bad smell in a lift.

The US and South Korean presidents do not have the ability to understand international strategies, and they cannot understand the importance of cooperation among the three countries.

As long as they exist, the unstable situation in East Asia will continue.

The United States military is not a mercenary.

@RIchard,

Thanks for the informative post! I always knew something was off about this guy.

Since its book time, why isnt he required to pay back his salary? I think all these people

who use the government as a career but then cut their term short should pay it back.

We've been hearing this line for years. "IT'S ONE-SIDED!!! IT'S UNFAIR!!!"

Can anyone go into specifics? What is it about the framework that has provided 7 decades of relative peace that is "one-sided" or "unfair"? There are people in the background who hash out the details of agreements like this; shut up, get out of the way and let these people do their jobs.

Can anyone go into specifics? What is it about the framework that has provided 7 decades of relative peace that is "one-sided" or "unfair"? There are people in the background who hash out the details of agreements like this; shut up, get out of the way and let these people do their jobs.

Its not unfair at all. WW2 put Japan in a deep hole, over spent over extended themselves into near oblivion, with no checks to stop it. Now they have the US to check them, and get access to US markets and get to spend defense money on great infrastructure, while the US has a sub standard high speed? rail and hideous air ports and unsatisfactory infrastructure.

Seems like a good deal to me. Complainers would not even be able to complain if Japan would of negotiated a conditional surrender; gaijin would of been barred from entry. Additionally, a "unique" sub culture, admired world wide was born from pacifist Japan, anime, herbivore men, hello kitty and other cute things.

The US-Japan alliance is one-sided and unfair. To make it truly bilateral and fair, the US should allow Japan to have nuclear weapons and admit that the US made a mistake when it imposed the Constitution on Japan when the country was under US occupation.

Abe is Tramps only friend.Thats what friends are for.Golfing together and after that getting screwed up.

The U.S. would gladly leave, the Japanese Government wants them to stay because the Japanese armed forces don't have the confidence to protect her homeland.

So if the Japanese dont want the US forces here then they had better like either the Chinese, or Russian Forces here because without the US being here Japan is going to be over run by its neighbours who are a little more aggressive and a little less caring .

Japan at the moment could not defend itself without help and support from the US so stop your deluded thoughts of life without the US bases being here for now.

There are wolves at the door who would like to take some retribution for what happened in the past and they would not hesitate once the door is left ajar. Stop kidding yourself.

Who do you believe?

Bolton (who was fired and now like everybody else tries to capitalize off Trump)

Or

Yoshihide

Both seem like they can be correct.

Even if Trump asked for more it wouldn't surprise me.

In reality even if Trump wants more. Is it better to let the military walk and build your own army?

But us simpletons will just use this to bash Trump. I guess negotiations are bad? What a world we live in.

You can be angry at the U.S. all you want, but if we pull out of Japan you can bet China will come. Trade deals favor Japan, defense deals favor Japan, everything has to favor poor old Japan. Man up or pay up J-gov.