U.S. Senator and Ex-Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty: Economic Security, National Security Are Tied

The Yomiuri Shimbun

20:00 JST, May 27, 2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator and former Ambassador to Japan William Hagerty said in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun that economic security and national security are linked for Japan and the United States. The following excerpts from the interview have been edited for flow and clarity.

The Yomiuri Shimbun: The focus of this interview is mainly U.S.-Japan trade negotiations. Please tell us your view of the current talks.

William Hagerty: I hope that the Japanese negotiators are examining everything that they import and looking for opportunities to increase the U.S. presence, U.S. market share of those imports. Economic security and national security are tied. So I’m encouraging my friends around the world, not just Japan … to look at ways to deepen our economic and commercial activities. If you look at opportunities that are very obvious, take LNG, for example, why does Japan have Russia still selling LNG, why is Japan still importing Russian LNG, I should say, the United States should supplant that. The U.S. should become the strategic partner of choice. I would look at harmonizing our standards.

Yomiuri: The Trump administration is intensifying its trade negotiations, not only with Japan, but all over the world. But the Japanese public is a little shocked that the conditions are very tough, the views of the Japanese are getting more negative, according to some Yomiuri Shimbun research and other media. What’s your message to give our readers a deeper understanding of what is going on with the U.S.-Japan alliance?

Hagerty: I have dedicated a good portion of my life to deepening the U.S.-Japan alliance. I see it as the strongest and most important alliance that we have in the world. And I think as the readers consider the neighborhood that Japan is in, and I’m talking about North Korea, Russia, China at your doorstep, the best possible move would be to strengthen relationships between our two economies, our two nations and the trade imbalance has been persistent and has gone on for decades. And the American public also is unhappy about trade imbalances now. The United States is the most open market in the world, but the result is a persistent trade deficit as well.

The U.S. people feel very, very positively toward the Japanese people as well. There is a very positive foundation. If we take a strategic view, I think the Japanese public would see that the partnership with America remains the most important alliance in the world. And I think that if they think hard about the long-standing relationship we have, they should reflect positively on that. I think his [Trump’s] view right now is he’s going to fix this imbalance. He’s going to fix it on a global basis. As upsetting as it may be to the economic order, it needs to happen because the imbalance has been borne here.

Yomiuri: President Trump is holding negotiations with China, but he hasn’t shown, he hasn’t articulated his view toward the East Asian security environment yet. How do you see his view of the East Asian security environment?

Hagerty: President Trump had been extraordinarily clear that the Indo-Pacific region is a top strategic priority. That was the case in his first term. That has not changed. I talk with him on a regular basis about the relationship with Japan and what we need to do. He sees the strategic value of our partnership and our alliance as an enormous one.

I think President Trump has also been clear that he would like to see each of our partners play a more aggressive role. That’s why Japan’s commitment to increase its defense expenditures has been met in a very positive way. I would fully expect that President Trump would welcome even further suggestions and commitments to deepen the investment in defense in the entire region.

Yomiuri: Do the further commitments include the Taiwan Strait?

Hagerty: The Taiwan Strait is an obvious concern for all of us. To be frank, [we’re] quite aware that there are other countries, like China that are going to be predatory in nature. They’re going to steal intellectual property, they’re going to subsidize their industries, and they are, frankly, not going to let us come in and compete on the same terms that their own industry enjoys domestically.

If Japan, South Korea, the U.S. can work more closely in harmonizing our national security approach and looking for more opportunities to develop technologies together that could be dual-use technologies, but that can enhance our economies and our national security, we should pursue those. Japan has already made steps to dramatically increase its defense expenditures.

My again suggestion here would be that those expenditures be oriented toward dramatically increasing interoperability between the U.S. and Japan from a military and strategic standpoint, we should be looking at developing technologies together. Japan should be looking at procurements that bring us closer together. And all of this will have a positive impact on the trade deficit, which has been the persistent problem.

—This interview was conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers Yuko Mukai and Riley Martinez.

William Hagerty

Hagerty served as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2017 to 2019, during the first Donald Trump administration. He also lived in Japan during the 1980s while working for a consulting firm. In April, he was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by the Japanese government.