Japan to join Trump's 'Golden Dome' project, expects missile requests
Why it matters: It deepens US‑Japan defense ties and reshapes missile defense amid rising global threats.
- Japan will inform the United States next week of its intent to join the Golden Dome initiative (Reuters, anonymous sources).
- Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is set to announce the plan at a Washington summit with President Trump on March 19 (Reuters).
- Trump’s Golden Dome project seeks to expand ground‑based interceptors and add experimental space‑based sensors by 2028, though progress has been limited (Reuters).
- Yomiuri newspaper highlights Japan’s hope that the program will defend against new hypersonic glide weapons being developed by China and Russia (Yomiuri).
- Patriot missile export to the U.S. last year marks Japan’s first lethal weapons sale, signaling a shift in its historic export ban (Reuters).
- U.S. defense demand for missiles, strained by the Middle East war and support for Ukraine, may prompt requests for Japanese co‑development or production (Reuters).
Japan will tell Washington it’s joining President Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile‑defense push, a move that could see Tokyo co‑producing missiles to replenish U.S. stocks depleted by the Iran‑Israel war and Ukraine conflict, while aiming to counter hypersonic threats from China and Russia.
