Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is meeting Donald Trump in what she expected would be a "very difficult" conversation, just days after the president's calls for allies to help secure the war-stricken Strait of Hormuz went largely unanswered.

Takaichi told parliament hours before her departure that she would "do everything to maximise [Japan's] national interest".
While the visit was billed as a chance to to talk trade and deepen the US-Japan alliance, shared concerns over the war's impact cast a shadow over the meeting.

In the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said he expected Japan to "step up" and help safeguard the flow of oil through the region.

The trip was scheduled back in October, a week after Takaichi took office, when Tokyo rolled out the red carpet for Trump and the two leaders heaped compliments on each other, heralding a new "golden age" in bilateral ties.
As of a few weeks ago, the upcoming meeting looked set to be a success, with Takaichi "fresh off a dominant election victory and with a new round of investment projects in the US", Emma Chanlett-Avery, director for political and security affairs at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told the BBC.

But while Takaichi "had intended to build on the warmth of her first meeting with Trump and press upon him Japan's concerns about Chinese aggression ahead of Trump's [then scheduled] meeting with Xi", recent events have complicated things, said Chanlett-Avery.

Earlier this week, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform a call for some countries to help secure the vital strait.
He had pointed to Japan's and other Asian economies' dependence on fuel from the Middle East as reason for them to get involved.

"We get less than 1% of our oil from the [Strait of Hormuz] and some countries get much more... We want them to come and help us," he wrote.

But after receiving a lukewarm response, he retracted his request, saying in a later post that the US did "NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!".

In a joint statement along with the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands published on Thursday, Japan expressed its shared "readiness to contribute appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage" through the strait.
Seated with his counterpart before the meeting, Trump said that he now believes Japan "is stepping up to the plate", although he did not offer details.

Takaichi, for her part, acknowledged a "very severe security environment" and a "huge hit" to the global economy - but said she believed Trump would be able to resolve it.

"I firmly believe that it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world," she said, speaking through an interpreter. "I am ready to reach out to many of the partners in the international community to achieve our objective together."

BBC News.