{"id":204711,"date":"2026-03-20T01:24:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-mocks-japan-about-pearl-harbor-in-response-to-question-about-iran-war-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T01:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:24:36","slug":"trump-mocks-japan-about-pearl-harbor-in-response-to-question-about-iran-war-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-mocks-japan-about-pearl-harbor-in-response-to-question-about-iran-war-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump mocks Japan about Pearl Harbor in response to question about Iran war – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president was meeting with Japanese PM when he said: \u2018Who knows better about surprise than Japan?\u2019
Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox<\/a>
It would be funny if it wasn\u2019t so Trumpy.
Hosting the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi<\/a>, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Donald Trump<\/a> could not resist mocking Japan<\/a> about its 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor during the second world war.
After a series of questions about the current conflict in Iran<\/a>, the US president was asked by a Japanese reporter: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell US allies in Europe and Asia and Japan about the war before attacking Iran?\u201d<\/em>
Trump replied: \u201cOne thing you don\u2019t want to signal too much, you know, when we go in, we went in very hard and we didn\u2019t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan<\/a>?\u201d
There was laughter in the room but the president had not finished. He asked mischievously: \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?\u201d
Suddenly the laughter died away. Takaichi\u2019s eyes widened and she shifted in her chair as Trump evoked the moment that drew the US into the second world war.
The Japanese attack on the US naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii<\/a>, took place on 7 December 1941, nearly five years before Trump was born. It killed 2,390 Americans and the US declared war on Japan the next day. Then president Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it \u201ca date which will live in infamy\u201d.
The US defeated Japan in August 1945, days after atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Trump supporters relished his off-the-cuff response. His son Eric posted on the X social media platform: \u201cOne of the great responses to a reporter in history!\u201d
Critics were less impressed. Journalist Mehdi Hasan wrote: \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but this is legit hilarious. If only he wasn\u2019t the president and just a character on TV. We could laugh our heads off without any sense of unease, dread, or embarrassment.\u201d
It was not Trump\u2019s first awkward moment regarding the war. Last year, when Germany\u2019s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, brought up 6 June as D-day, Trump responded<\/a> that it was \u201cnot a pleasant day\u201d for the chancellor.
Merz replied: \u201cWell in the long run, Mr President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship.\u201d
Trump has repeatedly complained on camera and online this week that US allies, including Japan, did not heed his request to help safeguard the strait of Hormuz after he launched war on Iran. On Thursday, he declared the help wasn\u2019t needed, but made other comments indicating he still expected help, saying: \u201cit\u2019s appropriate that people step up.\u201d
For Japan to send its Self-Defense Forces abroad is politically sensitive for the officially pacifist nation, as many voters support the US-imposed 1947 constitution that renounces war.
Takaichi later told reporters they agreed that ensuring the safety of the strait was of the utmost importance, but she gave Trump a detailed explanation of the actions Japan can and cannot take under its law.
The meeting appeared to highlight once again Takaichi\u2019s ability to charm Trump, following a similarly friendly meeting in Tokyo in October during which she said she would nominate him for the Nobel peace prize. At one point she said: \u201cI firmly believe that it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US president was meeting with Japanese PM when he said: \u2018Who knows better about surprise than Japan?\u2019Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxIt would be funny if it wasn\u2019t so Trumpy.Hosting the Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in the Oval Office on Thursday, Donald Trump could not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-204711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}