Neither Kyodo News nor the Japan Times deal in parody headlines. But you’d be forgiven if you saw one of Sunday’s headlines about President Donald Trump allegedly asking Japanese officials “why a country of samurai warriors” didn’t shoot down ballistic missiles North Korea test launched in August and September and figured it was something from The Onion.
Even allowing for some hiccups in the English to Japanese translation of a borderline racist phrase like “country of samurai warriors,” if Trump actually had to ask about why Japan didn’t shoot down the missiles, this is deeply troubling. When the missiles were launched earlier in the fall, Japan’s military determined they were not a direct threat, declined to interrupt their path, and let them crash into the Pacific Ocean.
The Dotard-in-Chief apparently couldn’t grasp that shooting down those missiles could be seen as a declarative act of war, and he got flamed on Twitter.
It’s almost as if the United States elected a former reality show contestant who may not understand that Article 9 of Japan’s constitution literally outlawed Japan’s right to make war. Oh, wait.
If you had the over/under on Donald Trump having a foot-in-mouth moment one day into his 11-day tour of Asia, congratulations.
Per Julie Hirschfeld Davis of the New York Times, the rest of Trump’s visit has thus far been highlighted by the usual speeches about his domestic record and what sounded like thinly veiled shots at Kim Jong Un.
“No one—no dictator, no regime and no nation—should underestimate, ever, American resolve,” Trump said while addressing American troops stationed at Yokota Air Base in Tokyo. “You are the greatest threat to tyrants and dictators who seek to prey on the innocent.”
Few things inspire patriotism like the President deciding to emulate Suge Knight at the 1995 Source Awards. The next 10 days should produce some interesting headlines.