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Trump Holds a Press Conference with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan, Feb. 7, 2025

February 7, 2025 · The White House · 0:38:03

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump held a joint press conference with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan at the White House on Feb. 7, 2025, carried on the White House channel, closing Ishiba’s first White House visit of the term. The President said Japan was committed to doubling its defense spending by 2027 compared with his first term, that his administration had approved nearly a billion dollars in foreign military sales to Tokyo that week, and that the United States would extend the full strength of its deterrence in Japan’s defense, as he stated the commitments.

On economics, the President put the two countries’ trade at over $300 billion a year and Japan’s investment in the United States at nearly $800 billion and rising, and said the bilateral trade deficit - over $100 billion, as he stated it - could be worked out “just on oil and gas,” pointing to a prospective Alaska oil and gas joint venture he said Japan was excited to join. On U.S. Steel, he said Nippon Steel would pursue “an investment rather than a purchase,” investing heavily without owning the company - “that sounds very exciting” - and that a meeting with the company would follow the next week, as he described the arrangement.

Why it matters

The Ishiba press conference sets the Japan file’s opening terms in both leaders’ presence: the defense-spending trajectory, the deterrence pledge, the deficit framed as an energy problem, and the U.S. Steel ownership question answered with an investment structure - each checkable against what followed.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: the U.S. Steel arrangement as stated on Feb. 7, 2025 (Nippon investment rather than purchase) and the Alaska oil and gas joint-venture discussions - flagged for the scoreboard editors; the entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Holds a Press Conference with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan” (YouTube, 2025-02-07) - official description and broadcast transcript as aired.