US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi at the White House was the talk of Japan on Friday. But the focus wasn’t just on investment deals and geopolitics: It was on Trump’s Pearl Harbor joke.

In the Oval Office on Thursday, the President made the crack while explaining why he did not give Japan advance notice of the attack on Iran.

“We wanted surprise,” he said, with Takaichi seated next to him. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, okay? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, okay? Right?”

Many Japanese scholars, politicians and commentators were aghast. Some criticised Trump, saying he should not have revived a painful Second World War chapter so casually. Others directed their anger at Takaichi, saying she should have spoken up. Still others said they were concerned that it might harm relations between Japan and the US.

Toru Tamagawa, a commentator for the broadcaster television Asahi, said on a morning show that the comment showed “an unpleasant side of President Trump”.

“He doesn’t care at all that the Japanese Prime Minister is sitting next to him,” he said.

Izuru Makihara, a professor of Japanese politics at the University of Tokyo, said in an interview that many Japanese would probably shrug off the joke, seeing it as just another over-the-top remark by Trump.

But he added: “This is something that absolutely shouldn’t be said. He might start saying things like, ‘Hiroshima and Nagasaki were fine, weren’t they?’ For Japanese people, we can’t accept that.”

New York Times News Service