October 7, 2025 • 19 mins
For the first time in history, Japan’s ruling party has elected a woman as its leader. Sanae Takaichi, 64, is an unconventional figure — and now she’s on track to become Japan’s first female prime minister.
On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha speaks with Bloomberg’s Paul Jackson about Takaichi’s path to power, why her politics aren’t resonating with some Japanese women and what her leadership could mean for Japan’s economy and its relationship with the United States.
Read more: Japan Braces for Shift to Right Under ‘Iron Lady’ Fan Takaichi - Bloomberg
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This past weekend, history was made in Tokyo. Takaichi saks
must up. For the first time ever, the Liberal Democratic Party,
Japan's dominant conservative political machine, elected a woman to lead it.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
So the winner was Sanaia Takaichi, and she is on
track to become Japan's first female prime minister.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Bloomberg's Paul Jackson covers Japan's government out of Tokyo. He
says Takeichi's victory all but guarantees her assent to the
Prime Minister's office in the coming days.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Generally speaking, the Prime Minister of japanan is the leader
of the LDP.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
In many ways, Takeiichi is an unconventional leader in Japanese politics.
For starters, she's a woman in a country that consistently
ranks poorly for gender equality, but it goes beyond that.
She's a former heavy metal drummer and motorcycle enthusiast. She's
also a big fan of the late British Prime Minister
(01:13):
Margaret Thatcher and says she wants to be Japan's Iron Lady.
Takaichi is also known for her hardline nationalism, a tough
stance on China and close ties to the legacy of
former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, And as Paul puts it,
her rise marks a more assertive Japan and sends a
clear message the country is shifting further to the right.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's this idea that traditional Japanese values are being sacrificed
to some kind of global wokeness.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the market's tycoon and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show,
Sinai Takeiichi. She's poised to become Japan's first woman prime minister,
(02:10):
but some Japanese women aren't thrilled about her politics, what
her rise to power means for Japan's economy and its
relations with the US. Japan's ruling parties election of a
conservative but pro stimulus leader sent shockwaves through global markets.
(02:33):
Japanese stocks soared on hopes of more government spending, while
currencies and bonds took a hit. Across Asia, markets rallied
as Sinai Takeiichi's win sets her to take the reins
as Japan's next Prime minister now Paul. Who is Sanai Takichi.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Well, she's the daughter of a salesman in Nada, one
of the ancient capitals of Japan, very much associated with
the introduction of Buddhism. It's the site of many ancient temples.
That's where she grows up. Her mother works for the
police force, and she's inspired by the example of Margaret Thatcher,
(03:15):
the first female prime minister in the UK. As she
grows up, she goes to university in Koba. There she
gets into biking. She's a bit of a biker. She's
also into heavy metal. She's very influenced by British rock
bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and in fact she
(03:38):
gets into drumming as a heavy metal drummer.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
At that time, she might be Japan's first heavy metal
drummer prime minister.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's right. This eventually leads her to thinking about a
career in politics. She wins her first seat in parliament
in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now she is a protege of the late Prime ministration
zo Abbe, and said during the campaign that she wants
to be Japan's Iron Lady, reference to the UK's Margaret Thatcher.
What does this tell us, Paul about the kind of
leader she might be.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I think on the political and diplomatic side, she's going
to be wanting Japan to be more assertive, boost its
defense identity and also its influence in regional politics and
security issues. On the economic side, I think it's important
(04:35):
whenever we get these references to Margaret Thatcher to remember that,
you know, Margaret touch is very much neoliberal on the economics. Now,
this is very different from the LDP in Japan. It's
a big government with a lot of interventionist influence in
the economy. So in that respect, she differs very much
(04:59):
from my Margaret Thatcher, who is much more about smaller
government and reducing the footprint of the government in the economy.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Here's the thing about Takeichi. She is often labeled as
a hardline conservative, but her style leans more towards that
of a right wing populist in the style of Donald Trump.
She's challenging the establishment, calling out central bankers, and tapping
into public frustrations about immigration, over tourism and inflation. And
while Takeiichi's rise is historic for Japan, it's unclear whether
(05:33):
she'll bring about progress on women's issues and rights.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now, she's a woman, and she does speak to some
of the kind of female fears and concerns and interests,
but you know, largely her policy front is very much
in line with a male conservative position. For example, one
of the hot issues in Japan in recent years has
(06:00):
been the surnames with families. Partners are obliged to take
the surname of the spouse. Now that you can choose
between the husband or the wife's name, but essentially you
have to choose that name and stick with it. So
there's been quite a movement to enable a husband and
(06:20):
wife to just stick with existing surnames after marriage. Now,
on this point, tac Ag is quite determined to stick
with the existing logic. No, no, no, you stick with
one surname, that's it. This seems for many women like
she's holding back women's rights on names. Obviously, in terms
(06:45):
of other subjects like gay marriage or rights for a
more diverse community, she's generally against going in that direction.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
But Paul says she still has an opportunity to open
the door for women in politics.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Now, what we'll wait to see is how this cabinet
is made up. So she has a chance to make
a can of mission statement there by having a lot
of women in the cabinet. Five or more would match
the previous record. I think if she did, that would
reassure a lot of women.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And on the campaign trail, she made some progressive promises
that would bring more women into the workforce, which could
help turn around Japan's labor shortage.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
She has mentioned some policies that would be favorable for
people dealing with childcare. She suggested that babysitting charges should
be made tax deductible. I think also she's offering tax
breaks to companies that set up daycare on site at
their companies. Again, that would be a huge help to
(07:54):
working mothers out there.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I mean, in the broader scheme of japan politics, is
she really that conservative at this moment in time or
are her views in some ways quite populist.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I think they are close to populist. I guess our
definition of that would be can you reach the boardroom
and can you reach the factory floor? And she probably
can in that respect. What we saw in her campaign
this time around compared with last year is she toned
(08:26):
down some of her economic policy messaging and kind of
gave us a softer view of who she was. I
think the idea there was to appeal to a wider
sway of the ruling party and to the public as well.
So it remains to be seen whether you know, she
comes into power and then takes off her cheap clothing
(08:49):
and there's the wolf, or whether she is going to
stick to a slightly slightly close to centrist line so
that she can achieve long devity in her position. Because
don't forget, this is a very fickle political machine we're
talking about. We've seen a host of prime ministers over
(09:10):
the years being thrown out within like a year. So
if she wants to really establish herself leave a legacy,
that really does show that her appointment is a watershed.
She does need to tap in to the common person
on the street as well as those people who are
(09:32):
fretting about the influx of foreigners and wanting more conservative views.
Also expressed, we've got an aging society, a shortage of workers,
which means the country kind of needs to draw on
foreigners coming in to help boost the labor force, and
(09:52):
this is an uneasy moment for the Japanese public.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
How's Takaichi planning to tackle these hurdles, and where will
she steer Japan between China and the US. That's after
the break. Japan's Prime Minister in waiting, Sanai Takeichi, is
(10:22):
facing a host of challenges a sluggish economy, an aging population, economicstagnation,
and low wage growth. And among the litany of issues,
Bloomberg's Paul Jackson says, there's one clear priority for Takichi.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The first thing she must tackle is inflation. The backdrop
here is Japan spent like a couple of decades as
the poster child of falling prices deflation. They had terrible
problems kind of reigniting price growth. Now any other country
in the world, you're thinking, what would you want to
(10:59):
do that for, But in Japan it's this idea of
creating a cycle of growth through inflation. Get wages going up,
get growth going up. And this has been a central
LDP goal. And now we've had three years of inflation
over two percent. People are realizing that, Okay, wages are
(11:23):
going up, but my purchasing power is going down all
the time, and some of the basic expenses, namely food,
are going up way more than inflation. And the LDP
has tried all kinds of measures to subsidize gasoline prices,
subsidize electricity prices, so on and so forth, and the
(11:47):
result from your average voter is it's not enough.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
During her campaign, Takeiichi pledged to revive key elements of Abinomics,
the economic policy of high public spending and cheap borrowing
that was championed by her mentor former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
But Paul says it's not clear that's the right strategy
for Japan right now.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Although there's a lot of popularity for the ebonomics approach
of reflating the economy spending low interest rates, if you've
got inflation, then what is that combination going to generate.
I'm afraid it's going to generate more inflation, right, That's
what the voters do not want. I think what she
(12:32):
needs to do is she needs to give more purchasing
power to consumers. Now, you could do this through pushing
up wages, but a government can't dictate how wages go up,
and so this has been one of her central arguments
criticizing the other candidates is they've all got all these
wage goals. She's saying, you cannot tell the private sector
(12:55):
to raise wages by certain amounts, so she's more of
the idea of, okay, we need some kind of cash
handouts and tax rebate so that people have more money
in their pockets now to deal with the cost of
living crunch.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
A key function of abinomics was to stimulate the economy
by keeping interest rates low, but Japan has only just
emerged from a decade long period of stimulus and has
been raising interest rates to hold inflation down. Paul says
if Takei she follows through on her promise to expand spending,
it could put the central bank in a difficult position.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The Bank of Japan under Governor Ueda has been normalizing policy.
We've had interest rate increases, and we're kind of lined
up for an interest rate hike later this month. But
with Takaichi taking the helm, I think all those bets
are kind of off for now. Because she in the past,
(13:57):
just a year ago, she was saying raising interest rates
was stupid. That's a pretty harsh comment to make. Now
she's toned it down this time round, but in a
question asked by Kodo News last week, she specifically said
that she'd be against interest rates going up at this point. Now,
(14:19):
obviously the government doesn't dictate what the Bank of Japan does,
but you would expect there is going to be some
kind of political pressure on the Bank of Japan to
go cautiously and slowly going forward. And this is where
we've seen how the yen has weakened as expectations of
where interest rates go are kind of getting pegged back,
(14:41):
and of course that's also feeding into the stock prices
going up.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
As Takaichi steps onto the world stage, Paul says one
of her first priorities will be building a relationship with
US President Donald Trump and strengthening the Japan US alliance.
And she appears to have made a good star. Art
Trump congratulate takei Ichi on her victory on social media,
calling her a highly respected person of great wisdom and strength.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Her first major diplomatic test will be the likely visit
of President Trump to Japan. Now, Japan has sealed a
trade deal with the US, and the key aspect of
that is bringing down auto tariffs from twenty five percent
down to fifteen percent.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I just signed the largest trade deal in history, I
think maybe the largest.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Deal in history. With that's something that rival South Korea
still hasn't achieved. So there's a positive there from that deal.
But then we also have this very complicated investment to
five hundred and fifty billion dollars of investment that Japan
has pledged to the US. But they don't seem to
(15:55):
be quite on the same page as to whether this
is actual money going straight to the US or whether
it's investment can loans or even just guarantees on investment loans.
So I think what we have here is potential for
problems on the implementation of that investment pledge part of
(16:16):
the trade deal. Now, what we heard taka She say
during the campaign was if there are issues with the
implementation of that investment, then there is the possibility that
parts of that agreement may need to be renegotiated. Now
I don't think Donald Trump is going to like that
(16:37):
very much. But to be sure, she's not going to
meet Donald Trump and be ripping up trade agreements. She's
going to be sticking to those trade agreements. And I
think she's going to be plugging in to that kind
of common populist conservative streak that Donald Trump has and
basically saying, hey, look, I'm kind of like you in Japan.
(17:01):
You can rely on me.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
One other area that Trump and Takeiichi could align on China.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
She's cautious about China's role. Her basic stance would be
in line with US view on containing China's growing influence
in the world and within Asia. So I think there's
a lot of parallels, a lot of common ground for
them to tap into. The idea that global supply chains,
(17:34):
supply networks, key security items for the global economy, namely chips,
stuff like that, That there should be a global network
of which the US is a central pillar. These are
all kind of themes that Takeiichi is on the same page.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Paul says, Takeichi's victory shows that Japan is falling in
line with a and that's sweeping the world.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I think this is a reflection of where the world
has been going in recent years. Donald Trump has created
a kind of playbook for right wing populists around the world,
appealing both to the boardrooms and the factory floor. As
a key element that the idea of multilateral consensus forget this.
(18:26):
It's about the deal. You know, what can you get
for your country? What can you get that the average
person can easily understand as a win, as something that's
positive for them, positive for their future, for their jobs,
and we're seeing these leaders emerging all over the world.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
dot com slash podcast Offer. If you liked the episode,
make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take Asia
wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find
the show. Thanks for listening, See you next time.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This past weekend, history was made in Tokyo. Takaichi saks
must up. For the first time ever, the Liberal Democratic Party,
Japan's dominant conservative political machine, elected a woman to lead it.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
So the winner was Sanaia Takaichi, and she is on
track to become Japan's first female prime minister.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Bloomberg's Paul Jackson covers Japan's government out of Tokyo. He
says Takeichi's victory all but guarantees her assent to the
Prime Minister's office in the coming days.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Generally speaking, the Prime Minister of japanan is the leader
of the LDP.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
In many ways, Takeiichi is an unconventional leader in Japanese politics.
For starters, she's a woman in a country that consistently
ranks poorly for gender equality, but it goes beyond that.
She's a former heavy metal drummer and motorcycle enthusiast. She's
also a big fan of the late British Prime Minister
(01:13):
Margaret Thatcher and says she wants to be Japan's Iron Lady.
Takaichi is also known for her hardline nationalism, a tough
stance on China and close ties to the legacy of
former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, And as Paul puts it,
her rise marks a more assertive Japan and sends a
clear message the country is shifting further to the right.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
It's this idea that traditional Japanese values are being sacrificed
to some kind of global wokeness.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
This is the Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
Every week we take you inside some of the world's
biggest and most powerful economies and the market's tycoon and
businesses that drive this ever shifting region. Today on the show,
Sinai Takeiichi. She's poised to become Japan's first woman prime minister,
(02:10):
but some Japanese women aren't thrilled about her politics, what
her rise to power means for Japan's economy and its
relations with the US. Japan's ruling parties election of a
conservative but pro stimulus leader sent shockwaves through global markets.
(02:33):
Japanese stocks soared on hopes of more government spending, while
currencies and bonds took a hit. Across Asia, markets rallied
as Sinai Takeiichi's win sets her to take the reins
as Japan's next Prime minister now Paul. Who is Sanai Takichi.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Well, she's the daughter of a salesman in Nada, one
of the ancient capitals of Japan, very much associated with
the introduction of Buddhism. It's the site of many ancient temples.
That's where she grows up. Her mother works for the
police force, and she's inspired by the example of Margaret Thatcher,
(03:15):
the first female prime minister in the UK. As she
grows up, she goes to university in Koba. There she
gets into biking. She's a bit of a biker. She's
also into heavy metal. She's very influenced by British rock
bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and in fact she
(03:38):
gets into drumming as a heavy metal drummer.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
At that time, she might be Japan's first heavy metal
drummer prime minister.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
That's right. This eventually leads her to thinking about a
career in politics. She wins her first seat in parliament
in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Now she is a protege of the late Prime ministration
zo Abbe, and said during the campaign that she wants
to be Japan's Iron Lady, reference to the UK's Margaret Thatcher.
What does this tell us, Paul about the kind of
leader she might be.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I think on the political and diplomatic side, she's going
to be wanting Japan to be more assertive, boost its
defense identity and also its influence in regional politics and
security issues. On the economic side, I think it's important
(04:35):
whenever we get these references to Margaret Thatcher to remember that,
you know, Margaret touch is very much neoliberal on the economics. Now,
this is very different from the LDP in Japan. It's
a big government with a lot of interventionist influence in
the economy. So in that respect, she differs very much
(04:59):
from my Margaret Thatcher, who is much more about smaller
government and reducing the footprint of the government in the economy.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Here's the thing about Takeichi. She is often labeled as
a hardline conservative, but her style leans more towards that
of a right wing populist in the style of Donald Trump.
She's challenging the establishment, calling out central bankers, and tapping
into public frustrations about immigration, over tourism and inflation. And
while Takeiichi's rise is historic for Japan, it's unclear whether
(05:33):
she'll bring about progress on women's issues and rights.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Now, she's a woman, and she does speak to some
of the kind of female fears and concerns and interests,
but you know, largely her policy front is very much
in line with a male conservative position. For example, one
of the hot issues in Japan in recent years has
(06:00):
been the surnames with families. Partners are obliged to take
the surname of the spouse. Now that you can choose
between the husband or the wife's name, but essentially you
have to choose that name and stick with it. So
there's been quite a movement to enable a husband and
(06:20):
wife to just stick with existing surnames after marriage. Now,
on this point, tac Ag is quite determined to stick
with the existing logic. No, no, no, you stick with
one surname, that's it. This seems for many women like
she's holding back women's rights on names. Obviously, in terms
(06:45):
of other subjects like gay marriage or rights for a
more diverse community, she's generally against going in that direction.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
But Paul says she still has an opportunity to open
the door for women in politics.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Now, what we'll wait to see is how this cabinet
is made up. So she has a chance to make
a can of mission statement there by having a lot
of women in the cabinet. Five or more would match
the previous record. I think if she did, that would
reassure a lot of women.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And on the campaign trail, she made some progressive promises
that would bring more women into the workforce, which could
help turn around Japan's labor shortage.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
She has mentioned some policies that would be favorable for
people dealing with childcare. She suggested that babysitting charges should
be made tax deductible. I think also she's offering tax
breaks to companies that set up daycare on site at
their companies. Again, that would be a huge help to
(07:54):
working mothers out there.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I mean, in the broader scheme of japan politics, is
she really that conservative at this moment in time or
are her views in some ways quite populist.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I think they are close to populist. I guess our
definition of that would be can you reach the boardroom
and can you reach the factory floor? And she probably
can in that respect. What we saw in her campaign
this time around compared with last year is she toned
(08:26):
down some of her economic policy messaging and kind of
gave us a softer view of who she was. I
think the idea there was to appeal to a wider
sway of the ruling party and to the public as well.
So it remains to be seen whether you know, she
comes into power and then takes off her cheap clothing
(08:49):
and there's the wolf, or whether she is going to
stick to a slightly slightly close to centrist line so
that she can achieve long devity in her position. Because
don't forget, this is a very fickle political machine we're
talking about. We've seen a host of prime ministers over
(09:10):
the years being thrown out within like a year. So
if she wants to really establish herself leave a legacy,
that really does show that her appointment is a watershed.
She does need to tap in to the common person
on the street as well as those people who are
(09:32):
fretting about the influx of foreigners and wanting more conservative views.
Also expressed, we've got an aging society, a shortage of workers,
which means the country kind of needs to draw on
foreigners coming in to help boost the labor force, and
(09:52):
this is an uneasy moment for the Japanese public.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
How's Takaichi planning to tackle these hurdles, and where will
she steer Japan between China and the US. That's after
the break. Japan's Prime Minister in waiting, Sanai Takeichi, is
(10:22):
facing a host of challenges a sluggish economy, an aging population, economicstagnation,
and low wage growth. And among the litany of issues,
Bloomberg's Paul Jackson says, there's one clear priority for Takichi.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
The first thing she must tackle is inflation. The backdrop
here is Japan spent like a couple of decades as
the poster child of falling prices deflation. They had terrible
problems kind of reigniting price growth. Now any other country
in the world, you're thinking, what would you want to
(10:59):
do that for, But in Japan it's this idea of
creating a cycle of growth through inflation. Get wages going up,
get growth going up. And this has been a central
LDP goal. And now we've had three years of inflation
over two percent. People are realizing that, Okay, wages are
(11:23):
going up, but my purchasing power is going down all
the time, and some of the basic expenses, namely food,
are going up way more than inflation. And the LDP
has tried all kinds of measures to subsidize gasoline prices,
subsidize electricity prices, so on and so forth, and the
(11:47):
result from your average voter is it's not enough.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
During her campaign, Takeiichi pledged to revive key elements of Abinomics,
the economic policy of high public spending and cheap borrowing
that was championed by her mentor former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
But Paul says it's not clear that's the right strategy
for Japan right now.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Although there's a lot of popularity for the ebonomics approach
of reflating the economy spending low interest rates, if you've
got inflation, then what is that combination going to generate.
I'm afraid it's going to generate more inflation, right, That's
what the voters do not want. I think what she
(12:32):
needs to do is she needs to give more purchasing
power to consumers. Now, you could do this through pushing
up wages, but a government can't dictate how wages go up,
and so this has been one of her central arguments
criticizing the other candidates is they've all got all these
wage goals. She's saying, you cannot tell the private sector
(12:55):
to raise wages by certain amounts, so she's more of
the idea of, okay, we need some kind of cash
handouts and tax rebate so that people have more money
in their pockets now to deal with the cost of
living crunch.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
A key function of abinomics was to stimulate the economy
by keeping interest rates low, but Japan has only just
emerged from a decade long period of stimulus and has
been raising interest rates to hold inflation down. Paul says
if Takei she follows through on her promise to expand spending,
it could put the central bank in a difficult position.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
The Bank of Japan under Governor Ueda has been normalizing policy.
We've had interest rate increases, and we're kind of lined
up for an interest rate hike later this month. But
with Takaichi taking the helm, I think all those bets
are kind of off for now. Because she in the past,
(13:57):
just a year ago, she was saying raising interest rates
was stupid. That's a pretty harsh comment to make. Now
she's toned it down this time round, but in a
question asked by Kodo News last week, she specifically said
that she'd be against interest rates going up at this point. Now,
(14:19):
obviously the government doesn't dictate what the Bank of Japan does,
but you would expect there is going to be some
kind of political pressure on the Bank of Japan to
go cautiously and slowly going forward. And this is where
we've seen how the yen has weakened as expectations of
where interest rates go are kind of getting pegged back,
(14:41):
and of course that's also feeding into the stock prices
going up.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
As Takaichi steps onto the world stage, Paul says one
of her first priorities will be building a relationship with
US President Donald Trump and strengthening the Japan US alliance.
And she appears to have made a good star. Art
Trump congratulate takei Ichi on her victory on social media,
calling her a highly respected person of great wisdom and strength.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Her first major diplomatic test will be the likely visit
of President Trump to Japan. Now, Japan has sealed a
trade deal with the US, and the key aspect of
that is bringing down auto tariffs from twenty five percent
down to fifteen percent.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I just signed the largest trade deal in history, I
think maybe the largest.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Deal in history. With that's something that rival South Korea
still hasn't achieved. So there's a positive there from that deal.
But then we also have this very complicated investment to
five hundred and fifty billion dollars of investment that Japan
has pledged to the US. But they don't seem to
(15:55):
be quite on the same page as to whether this
is actual money going straight to the US or whether
it's investment can loans or even just guarantees on investment loans.
So I think what we have here is potential for
problems on the implementation of that investment pledge part of
(16:16):
the trade deal. Now, what we heard taka She say
during the campaign was if there are issues with the
implementation of that investment, then there is the possibility that
parts of that agreement may need to be renegotiated. Now
I don't think Donald Trump is going to like that
(16:37):
very much. But to be sure, she's not going to
meet Donald Trump and be ripping up trade agreements. She's
going to be sticking to those trade agreements. And I
think she's going to be plugging in to that kind
of common populist conservative streak that Donald Trump has and
basically saying, hey, look, I'm kind of like you in Japan.
(17:01):
You can rely on me.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
One other area that Trump and Takeiichi could align on China.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
She's cautious about China's role. Her basic stance would be
in line with US view on containing China's growing influence
in the world and within Asia. So I think there's
a lot of parallels, a lot of common ground for
them to tap into. The idea that global supply chains,
(17:34):
supply networks, key security items for the global economy, namely chips,
stuff like that, That there should be a global network
of which the US is a central pillar. These are
all kind of themes that Takeiichi is on the same page.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Paul says, Takeichi's victory shows that Japan is falling in
line with a and that's sweeping the world.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I think this is a reflection of where the world
has been going in recent years. Donald Trump has created
a kind of playbook for right wing populists around the world,
appealing both to the boardrooms and the factory floor. As
a key element that the idea of multilateral consensus forget this.
(18:26):
It's about the deal. You know, what can you get
for your country? What can you get that the average
person can easily understand as a win, as something that's
positive for them, positive for their future, for their jobs,
and we're seeing these leaders emerging all over the world.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wanha.
To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
to all of Bloomberg dot Com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
dot com slash podcast Offer. If you liked the episode,
make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take Asia
wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find
the show. Thanks for listening, See you next time.
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