Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba Announces He will Step Down (UPDATE1 ）

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:34 JST, September 7, 2025

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba announced his decision to step down at a press conference on Sunday evening.

“I have decided to step down from the Liberal Democratic Party presidency post,” he said at the beginning of the conference. He pointed to the tariff negotiations with the U.S. as a part of his reasons to keep going right after the LDP’s scathing defeat in the House of Councillors election in July.

“Now that the memorandum of agreement was signed and the U.S. president signed an executive order to lower tariffs on Japanese imports last week, I felt I have reached a kind of milestone [to decide to step down],” he said.