Trump jokes about Pearl Harbor in meeting with Japanese PM
President Donald Trump on Thursday drew a parallel between U.S. strikes on Iran and Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor decades ago, as he defended the war against Tehran at a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Washington.
“We wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” Trump said when a journalist asked why he had not told allies about his war plans.
“You believe in surprise, I think much more so than us.”
Takaichi’s eyes widened, and she shifted in her chair as Trump, seated beside her in the Oval Office, evoked the moment that drew the U.S. into the Second World War.
The Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, killed 2,390 Americans, and the U.S. declared war on Japan the next day.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it “a date which will live in infamy.”
The U.S. defeated Japan in August 1945, days after U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed hundreds of thousands of civilians.
President Trump compared U.S. military actions against Iran to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi in Washington. He highlighted the importance of surprise in military strategy, referencing the historical context of Pearl Harbor, which drew the U.S. into World War II.
- Trump compared U.S. strikes on Iran to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.
- The meeting took place in Washington with Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi.
- Trump emphasized the element of surprise in military strategy.
- Pearl Harbor was a significant historical event that led the U.S. into WWII.